


Could Frame Thy Mortal

by orphan_account



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Blood, Captivity, Creature Stiles, Emotional Manipulation, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Prison, Rape, Sexual Assault, Starvation, Stockholm Syndrome, complete fic, on screen violence, some stiles/chris, unequal power dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2018-10-01 21:18:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 15
Words: 42,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10200566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: "It’s normal. Spending every waking second watching Hale is normal. In many ways, Hale is his whole universe: tracking his movements, waiting for what he does next, wondering what he’s thinking. The only outside stimulation he gets otherwise is the shower visits, and even then it’s only when Chris is the one taking him that he gets any engagement.Stiles knows Hale like he knows the water pipe. The sixty two bars that line the side of their cage. Like the minute of cold water that hits Stiles’ skin before the heat finally comes in the shower block. "Held in an Argent facility, never knowing who he can trust, Stiles pays for his survival with the only currency he has.





	1. Today Is Now

**Author's Note:**

> **This fic is complete and I am currently working on the sequel.**  
>  So I didn't want to start another WIP so I wrote an entire fic. It's kinda' a prison au with a focus on physical and psychological manipulations. There's definitely noncon in it (not too graphic) and a lot of dubcon (very graphic).
> 
> Three people in particular should be thanked for this fic: [WritersAreLiars](http://archiveofourown.org/users/WritersAreLiars/pseuds/WritersAreLiars) for just being a great inspiration all round; [WithMyTeeth](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Ylith/pseuds/WithMyTeeth) for cheerleading me whenever I step into badwrong; and [Julibean19](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Julibean19/pseuds/Julibean19) who went through this fic with a fine tooth comb and truly made it what it is today (genuinely, this would be a shambles without her work). 
> 
> I hope you all enjoy, the total fic will be about 35k (:

### Now.

 

When Stiles finally has his first conversation with Hale it’s been a long 24 hours already that Stiles has been in this new holding cell. A pen. Like something you’d hold a farm animal when you didn’t need it.

They don’t need him very often, just once a week to check his tattoos have stayed. He doesn’t know what they mean, just that they’re supposed to restrain him. From his _powers_. Whatever that means.

It’s cold, Stiles can’t get the chill out of his bones. The ratty sweater he was wearing the day they took him, and some plaid sweatpants. He had been having a pajama day. Stiles never thought he’d miss wearing real clothes. Or underwear. What he would do for underwear.

He got to have a shower when they checked him, and they appeared to have cleaned his clothes as they came back warm, but stinking of bleach. He was used to it by now, the bleach smell, but it still hurt his nose. There were lots of things he’d gotten used to, it doesn’t mean they don’t hurt. That they’re not terrifying. It just means you know it’s going to happen and nothing that you do is going to stop it.

* * *

  


 

_Before_

 

His previous cell was small and he’d shared it with a shabby looking man who turned out to be a werewolf. And wasn’t that a load of shit, Stiles found out about the amazing world of the supernatural by some bloodthirsty fucker trying to brain him against the bars.

He’d wet himself, Stiles remembers shamefully.

Stiles hadn’t even realized he was screaming, but he was so dizzy, and _that thing_ was tearing down his pants trying to force it’s cock between his ass cheeks. He had only realized the noise was coming from him when the man fell to the floor, and the only noise left was Stiles ripping open his vocal chords.

“Shut the fuck up or we’ll tranq’ you as well.” Yelled one of the guards from just outside the bars. Stiles had shut up and skittered away from the silent cellmate, glancing at the two men. The younger one was holding the gun, pointing it at him, the older one—maybe in his late thirties—was staring at him with a hard, unfathomable look. Stiles pulled up his damp pants and took a step towards them, unthinking in that moment that they had been the ones who had put him in there.

It made the older one wince, before he nodded and Stiles was allowed out. A shower, a glass of water, his clothes warmed and imbued with bleach handed back to him. And then he was returned to his cell.

Stiles watched the older man as he walked out the room, desperately hoping he’d stop, turn back and apologize. “Sorry, this was all a mix up. You’re supposed to be at home with your dad right now.”

He didn’t.

Stiles couldn’t scream while his mouth was fucked.

* * *

  


The man, Jerry, was a talker but vehemently opposed to listening. Maybe it was because he didn’t want to humanize Stiles, or he just really fucking hated the sound of Stiles’ voice, but Stiles finally learned the cold hard lesson of shutting the fuck up.

There was a leaky tap in the corner and a toilet that barely flushed, and they got food once a day. Mostly granola bars and stale bread. Stiles couldn’t help but wonder if they actually waited until the bread went stale to add to the experience or if they’d just bought it all in bulk weeks ago. Not that Stiles got to eat much of the bread. Jerry didn’t share their rations. If Stiles was lucky their food came when Jerry was taken out to be disciplined, or showered, or whatever happened when werewolves were taken out of their pens. Then Stiles would stuff as much of the food in his face as he could dare. It was no use hiding it for later, Jerry would find it and take it.

If Chris was the one to deliver the food he would wait until Jerry had taken the rations before passing Stiles his own granola bar. Stiles always felt conflicted by how relieved he was whenever Chris was there. The man never actually did anything to help Stiles, only mitigated against some of the worst moments. It was a bittersweet relief.

He’d shot Jerry with something that made the man’s veins go black when he found him raping Stiles in the middle of the day. It was horrifying. All of it, but having someone lie dead on top of you when they’d been fucking you was a new low that Stiles never thought he’d experience. He had dragged himself out from what felt like a corpse and had a breakdown in the corner.

_It just meant that Jerry waited until nightfall._

Now and again they’d do some tests on Stiles. It was mostly Chris, asking him if there was anything he was allergic to. “Yes, cold floors and malnourishment,” and anything that made him uncomfortable to touch. Stiles didn’t understand the questions, but Chris didn’t push it.

He’d asked once, after getting out the shower, his warm sweatpants on and his sweater in hand. The minute he put them on he’d be taken back to Jerry. To his cock. To the cold cell.

“Please… Let me go home now.” It’d slipped out. He hadn’t begged to go home since the very beginning when they took him. The first few weeks of the kidnapping, trying to escape, getting roughed up, riding in the back of vans, getting slapped around for mouthing off. But Chris had always been… softer with him. Like he didn’t quite see Stiles the same way the rest of the guards did. He hadn’t wanted to ask it, scared to rock the boat. To take away the small amount of protection he’d been granted thus far. But he didn’t want to go back in there, he didn’t think he could take another night. He didn’t think he could handle those same cold bars, and Jerry’s horrific Boston accent, and his violent, pain inducing dick.

“No.” Is all Chris said, not looking at him. He didn’t rush Stiles when he stood there crying though, and when Stiles finally pulled on the sweater he found a granola bar in the front pocket. He tried his best not to be grateful.

* * *

  


Stiles didn’t really know what got him moved, but it was probably because Jerry was definitely losing it. He had been shifting more and talking less. Every night more deranged, which meant at least he wasn’t trying to fuck Stiles but he was undeniably more violent.

Stiles always thought of himself as someone who could take a hit, but nightly onslaughts where you’re scared to go to sleep lest you wake up to someone trying to drive their dick in your mouth were something else entirely.

On the last night Jerry broke his wrist. He had been saying something again and again about being alone. That they were coming for him. That Stiles was keeping them from him. Up until then Jerry had just been a violent fuck head who seemed to want to keep Stiles too scared to demand more of their supplies (it worked) but he had definitely gone deranged now.

Stiles was screaming again.

It always surprised him when it happened, he had no control of it. He spent so much of his time being completely silent these days that whenever he heard that loud horrific noise piercing the airways he couldn’t believe that it came from him.

They came, Chris through the door first. They hit Jerry with a tranquilizer but he barely went down, his eyes flashing blue and great horrific teeth forcing their way through his gums. Stiles was so scared, even though he knew what Jerry was already, had seen bits and pieces now and again: a hint of tooth, a flash of blue eyes. Once, memorably, a clawed hand held his throat as Jerry fucked his mouth. But this was a whole other matter, dark hair was bursting out along his pores and the teeth were long enough to protrude from his mouth. Stiles, still cradling his arm, shoved himself into the corner trying to keep out of the line of sight.

Three more darts, and whatever the black vein stuff was made him go down, but it was clear that even then he wasn’t unconscious.

“Come here!” Chris shouted at him.

Stiles wanted to do literally anything but walk closer to Jerry, but Chris was at the entrance and if it meant possibly getting out of being in a locked cell with that monster, he would force himself to walk. The cold grey floor clapping with every step he took.

Three of the men stayed in the room with Jerry as Chris and one of the other guards escorted Stiles to the shower block. He didn’t shower though, instead Chris grabbed some antiseptic wipes and rubbed them down the cut on Stiles’ cheek bone where Jerry had introduced it to the concrete wall.

Neither of the men spoke to him, but they talked to each other and Stiles tried desperately to listen to any details.

“Fucking weres, what the fuck happened?”

“It’s the full moon,” Chris answered, his words economical as always and his tone even.

“Yeah but you don’t see the rest of the population trying to eat their cell mates.” The man cast an accusatory glance at Stiles as if maybe it was his fault.

“We’ve had Jerry the longest, maybe they’ll all get like that.”

“Fuck, I ‘aint lookin’ forward to it. Should we keep the kid in here or just keep Jerry tranq-ed for the night and send him back?”

Stiles realized they were talking about him, and his eyes glanced up at Chris. Trying to communicate with his eyes that he _really did not want to go back into the cage with Jerry right now._ Chris wasn’t looking at him, he was putting together some wooden splints that he was lining up with Stiles’ arm. Stiles keened lowly in his throat when Chris moved his wrist straight, but Chris didn’t appear to even hesitate. Eventually, however, he spoke.

“I’m moving him to a different cell.”

“We ‘aint got space. No one’s free.”

“Hale is.” Chris was winding a bandage tightly around the splints, it hurt like a bitch and it distracted Stiles a lot, but not enough to miss the way the other man paused at Chris’ words and look at him.

“You sure that’s a good idea?”

Chris gave the man a look. Stiles’ dad was a sheriff and thus Stiles knew _exactly_ what the look meant: I’m the boss here, and this isn’t something you’re going to question me on.

The other man shrugged sheepishly. “Sure, I guess the way his current cellmate has gone it can’t be any worse.” Stiles distinctively remembered not liking the sound of a new cellmate who was only a slightly less worse than a fully shifted werewolf trying to kill him.

* * *

  


#### Now

 

It makes sense that he’s been quiet. He learned quiet the hard way, and he isn’t looking to repeat the lesson. Chris’ low warning not to trust _him_ just before leading him into the new warehouse rings constantly in Stiles’ ears. For most of the night Chris or another guard stays in the room with them, their eyes trained on Hale and a tranquiliser gun cocked. Stiles has squirrelled himself away in the corner, as far as possible from his companion—and unfortunately the door—as possible, his thin pallet halfway up the wall to not take up room. It must be a wolf thing, staying close to the entrance, never having their back to it. And Hale is definitely a wolf, his eyes had glown a sharp red when they first entered, and any time Chris has moved while watching him the supernatural light had returned.

It’s early dawn when Stiles finally falls asleep, his eyes closing and opening to look at Hale, and then Chris, before drifting shut again on repeat. Until finally they don’t open again.

In the morning they are alone, Stiles notices with a shock of fear. Hale is still on the other side of the cell, it’s much bigger than the one he was in last time, but still it would only take a few quick steps and then the wolf would be on him. This wolf looks bigger, which doesn’t necessarily mean stronger, but all the guards that Stiles has seen enter thus far have watched him warily.

Two hours go by in silence, Stiles really needs to piss but he’s scared to move. The awful thought that he might piss himself again if Hale comes for him plagues him. _Like that first time with Jerry._ But he holds out.

Chris is the one that delivers the food. There’s more there than what he and Jerry got. Stiles watches Peter.

“Hale, against the wall.” No one ever said that to Jerry when they pushed the food through the little hatch, and the extra protocol has Stiles nervous.

As soon as the food drops Hale whirls back around and walks up to the bars. Chris is only just far back enough that Hale wouldn’t be able to grab him through the gaps, and Hale stares at him with a smirk like they both know it.

Shit.

Stiles is at least relieved to see that Peter doesn’t take all the food. In fact, he only takes one granola bar and a crust of bread. Leaving the majority of it in the box. Chris is watching both of them, especially Stiles.

Does Chris want him to take some food now while he’s here to protect him from Hale?

It feels like a dangerous thing to do, to take advantage of the protection on the very first day in front of Hale. Maybe he’d be punished for it more…. Maybe this is his only chance to have some.

Chris apparently gives up, walking to Stiles’ side of the pen and dropping an extra bar on the floor. It’s only a few feet away, and Stiles glances at Hale, who is watching Chris with a disgusted expression, when he snatches forward to take it.

They eat in silence, once Chris’ footsteps fade out, Stiles picturing every which way the wolf could hurt him.

* * *

  


Stiles has to walk past Hale to get to the toilet and the water. The door is in the middle of the barred side of the pen, and Hale sits opposite it. The toilet is on the same side of the main door to the building, and Stiles had sat in the farthest corner on the opposite side.

He’s managed to hold out for the better part of the day, but it’s getting ridiculous now. He’s fidgeting, and each time he moves erratically Hale looks over at him. The past three times he hasn’t looked impressed.

Slowly he raises himself up, careful of his broken wrist. Hale is looking at him, and Stiles stares at the floor. He walks towards the bars, and then delicately towards the opposite side, giving Hale the widest birth possible. Red eyes watch him as he gets closer and Stiles can’t help but speed up a little, but by the time he gets past the man, he appears to lose interest.

Stiles really doesn’t want to get his dick out in the same room as him, but he managed it with Jerry, he can manage it here. It was easier with Jerry, he muses. Because he knew what the man would do to him. It was fucked up, and ten times worse than Hale’s flat ignoring. But he knew what it was. Knew that very little of what he did would affect it, as long as he kept his mouth shut. Hale, though, was an unknown. So far there was peace, but something might rock the boat.

In the cool of the afternoon, Hale gets up. Stiles is back in his corner, trying to mentally recite all the films he’s ever watched in his head. Stiles feels a slide of anxiety up his spine as he watches Hale do some stretches. The man takes off his long sleeved woollen henley, and drops it on his own green mattress, before holding his hands out in front of him and growing ten perfectly sharp claws. They are longer and more defined than whatever he saw of Jerry’s, and Stiles feels his heart lurch unhappily at the sight. Hale drops his hands, and they return to regular nails, but then his mouth grows fangs.

Stiles is almost certain the man is trying to scare the shit out of him, maybe some kind of threat in case Stiles thought of challenging him. It’s doing the trick. Hale shifts completely after that, and Stiles is graced with his first ever proper look at an actual beta shift. It’s terrifying. It looks like something perfectly engineered to cause damage. A killing machine wrapped up in animalism. He stays perfectly still, trying not to attract attention.

The effort appears to exhaust Hale after a while though, and he drops the shift. Tugging on the heavy leather collar around his neck. Jerry had worn one too, and it must be what keeps their abilities in check, since they didn’t appear to have tattoos like Stiles did. Hale however appears to be much more in control than whatever Jerry could do, and Stiles commits the look to memory.

Hale jumps into the ceiling catching a steel bar that hangs from it.

Stiles screams.

He instantly covers his mouth with his hand, trying to block out the noise, but in minutes Chris is through the door. His gun cocked.

Peter looks at him from his position hanging from a steel beam, before letting go and returning to the ground.

“What the fuck is going on?” Chris asks, his gun pointing at Hale, but his eyes glancing at Stiles.

Stiles doesn’t say anything.

“It appears I made him jump.” Hale says with a grin, walking closer to the door.

Chris looks over at Stiles, “That right?”

Stiles nods. He’s starting to feel pretty fucking stupid, and for the first time ever wants Chris to leave to stop reminding Hale that he is an unuseful cell mate. _Nothing like a good first impression._

Chris pauses, before barking at Hale to stand against the wall.

He doesn’t go straight away, smirking at Chris. Taking another step forward, “Give me a reason to fucking shoot you Hale, you know I will.”

Hale still doesn’t look particularly ruffled but walks towards the wall anyway, giving Chris his back as he places both hands on the concrete wall. Stiles wishes he was wearing a shirt so he didn’t have to see all the ways Hale’s muscles ripple under the miles of tan skin.

“Stilinksi, come here.”

“Why?” Stiles asks, stupidly, before realizing what he said and getting up anyway. He walks slowly, keeping an eye on Hale before slipping quickly towards the door. A second man walks in and Chris orders him to train his gun on Hale as Chris efficiently opens the gate and pulls Stiles through before sealing it. As soon as the door closes again the wolf swings around and gets up close to the bars. Stiles must be standing close enough that Hale could reach him as Chris pulls him forward, which Stiles thinks is pretty fucking stupid as he’d just been locked in there with the man, but he takes his trip to the shower block as a gift all the same.

There’s no granola bar in his sweater when he gets it back, but Chris does take a long time rebinding his splint. So it’s not totally awful.

A moment or two respite. To sit quietly and look over the drab locker room of the shower block. There’s faded grey towels in boxes on the floor, all reeking of bleach, and some locked cupboards on one side. This is where Chris had fetched the bandages from. Stiles can’t see what else was in them from his spot on the stripped wooden bench.

When he gets back Hale is still doing his work out. This time push ups in the middle of the room, he’s barely breaking a sweat. Nowhere near as strained as when he was trying to control his shift. It’s a little mesmerising, and Hale flashes a smirk at him like he knows. Stiles steps backwards, bumping into Chris who stops him with a hand on his shoulder.

It’s when they’re alone again that Hale finally speaks to him. “So, you’re the screamer then.”

Stiles had been breaking the granola bar in half that he’d snagged from the box on the way when the man spoke, and he drops it on the floor in terror.

“No.” It’s the first thing he thinks to say. He doesn’t really know why, but he just hopes that it is the right answer.

Hale snorts, “Have you ever met a werewolf before?”

Stiles shakes his head in negative. Hale pauses, considering, before deciding to answer anyway. “We know when you lie.” 

Stiles feels his heartbeat speed up, and Hale smirks at him.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I lied.”

Hale shrugs, “Did you get moved here because you kept screaming?”

“No,” Stiles didn’t think it was a lie, but something must have given it away that he felt the man's assumption was partially true.

“Sharing my limited space with someone who lies to my face is going to get very boring _very_ quickly.” Hale has a hard look on his face, and Stiles feels some bile rise up his throat. Today was the best he’s eaten since he’s been here, so he’d rather keep it down.

“It wasn’t, because I was screaming… It was about,” _abort, abort, abort,_ “...why I was screaming.” Stiles’ skin is hot from fear and embarrassment, like Hale would know what Jerry had done to him.

Hale gives him a cursory glance over, “What are you?”

Stiles shrugs, he gets the question, he’s supposed to be something. That’s what this place is for, _somethings_ . Like werewolves. He just didn’t know what _he_ was supposed to be. 

“If you are going to lie again, you might as well do it out loud.”

 “That really wasn’t a lie, I don’t know what I’m supposed to be.” Hale looks at him, slightly baffled, before taking a few steps closer. Stiles’ legs seize up as he tries not to move, but the man stops a few feet away. He appears to scent the area for something, scrutinising Stiles, with an unsure look on his face.

Apparently Hale doesn’t know what he was either, as he backs off, “You should find out,” before walking back to his side of the cell.

* * *

  


Stiles shivers every night. Even during the day he can’t get warm, but it’s worse at night. When the temperature drops and the unending chill Stiles can feel in his bones starts to leak into his gut. It’s hard to sleep, his shivering keeping him awake, and the few times he does drop off he’s woken when a hard convulsion has him jolt his arm. Hale had snapped at him once to stop moving around at night, and Stiles’ only alternative was to try and stay awake until the worst of the cold passes, and laying down when the sun finally starts to rise.

He’s in a constant state of sleep deprivation, because sleeping while Hale is awake isn’t very easy either in the beginning. Although the man meditates a lot between food arriving and the evening, so that’s when Stiles grabs his catch up sleep. His stomach finally lined with food a small comfort.

A week or so in and he has relaxed around the man. Relaxed in the sense that he is no longer as paralysed with fear every time Hale looks at him, but not enough that he’s risked getting close to him.

For the most part they ignore each other, or Hale ignores him and Stiles plots his every movement so he can help keep up this avoidance. Hale clearly does not enjoy sharing his space, and dislikes the fact that Chris spends twice as much time near him now that Stiles is there. (One part collecting for showers, three parts delivering food). Hale clearly hates him, more than he hates any of the other guards. Which is saying something, because Hale hates them a considerable amount anyway.

The problem for Stiles is that now things are…. Calmer, the rot sets in. Before there was a lot of fear, there was constantly striving to get food. For baby stepping around Jerry. For getting his mouth fucked. Everything was terrifying, and Stiles didn’t really know if he’d wake up in the morning. It was all about the right now, just make it through this moment. Now he knows that Hale is going to let him eat, that he’s probably going to be left to sleep at night, that as long as he doesn’t do something to piss Hale off, he’s unlikely to be beaten…. Stiles realizes that he’s trapped here.

Before Stiles knew his life was miserable, and horrible, and scary. Now Stiles knows that his life isn’t going to get any better. It’s heartbreaking.

He cries all the way through one night, he knows it’s pissing Hale off as the man has turned over five times in the past hour, but he can’t help it. He’s stuck here. One minute he was living his life, planning for college, making his dad dinners. Stiles remembers how lonely he was before, lots of his friends had already left for college and he’d stayed back with his dad for a year, planning to go next year. It was hard, but he was working a bit, and it was nice to have the freedom of almost adulthood. He was jealous of his friends having first dates, and sex, and starting relationships while he was still a virgin. _I’m not a virgin anymore._ It was a joke that Stiles had had sex before getting his first kiss, but he didn’t think of it as sex really.

He’d give anything to be back to being a slightly lonely virgin living with his dad. It’s not something anyone deserved to know that they would miss.

The day after the night of almost constant crying Hale snaps at him twice for his constant flinching. It only made him wince more when Hale went about his daily exercises, and by the time Hale was growling at him, Stiles felt like he was going to hyperventilate.

“Hale get against the wall.” The man moves straight to the wall, not bothering with his usual head games, clearly pleased that Stiles was going to get the fuck away from him for the better part of an hour.

It isn’t Chris who collects him, but Stiles is relieved when the man comes in after the shower and rebinds his arm. They’re alone in the quiet little locker room to the showers, and Stiles can still feel the tremble of tears in his chest. The painful bind of his wrist being reset doesn’t help matters.

He keeps thinking about how much he’s annoying Hale, and what that’ll mean for his status quo. Maybe it’d stop him thinking about how trapped he is.

“What is it that you think I am?” Stiles asks suddenly.

Chris drops the end of the bandage and has to pick it back up. He squints at Stiles speculatively. “Are you trying to say that you still don’t know?”

It’d been a thing he’d been asking when he was first taken. None of the guards believed him when he begged them to let him go. First that his dad didn’t have any money so there was no point trying to ransom him, and then later he wasn’t special or supernatural. For the most part everyone had ignored him.

“I’ve never known. How could I? There’s nothing different about me.”

“You never experienced your powers before we bound you.” Chris says to himself mostly, as if something like that that made sense.

“I never had any! I’ve never had _any…_ Chris,” the man winces when Stiles says his name. Clearly uncomfortable with Stiles using his first name like they _know_ each other, “Maybe you got it wrong. I’m just some kid who got mixed up in this.”

Chris doesn’t say anything, and keeps binding his arm. His actions are quicker now, he wants to get Stiles back.

“Look,” Stiles is whispering, “I won’t tell anyone. I don’t know who any of you are. I don’t know where I am. You can just drop me off anywhere, the other side of the country.” Stiles knows the Beacon Hills county Sheriff’s office number off by heart. His dad would come and get him even if he was camping out at the North Pole, “I’ll just go home and never talk about any of—”

“Enough.” Chris barks, his voice reverberating against the close walls of the room. It makes Stiles flinch, which in turn knocks his wrist. He gasps in pain whilst Chris sighs, perhaps sympathetically or because he has to rebind it.

“It’s not going to work, enough of this nonsense.”

“I’ve only been here a few weeks—”

“I said enough! I’ve given you a lot of allowances. You don’t see anyone else in this room, you’re out without a two guard escort. You’re away from your first cell, and you and Hale have extra rations. You’re already getting it easy, _don’t push your luck._ ”

Stiles whispers, “But I’m not a creature,” as Chris drags him out again.

Before they get to the warehouse, where a second guard is waiting to order Hale back against the wall, Chris pauses.

“It’s been months.”

“What?”

“You’ve been here for months, not weeks.”

The correction doesn’t make anything easier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Please get in touch if you think the tags are wrong/need to be added.  
> 2\. I'm gonna give it a few days between chapters to give you guys a chance to feedback & allow me the chance to fix things and maybe add in some stuff if needed.  
> 3\. Thank you so much for reading! Kudos and comments literally support writers. It's free, like the content we give you. Hopefully that's enough (:


	2. Day In Day Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for your support, I'm glad so many of you found the introduction to this fic interesting. Hopefully it stays that way. (:

Stiles is watching Hale do his exercises. They aren’t as frightening now, as he knows the routine: how many push ups, how many sit ups. Even when Hale leaps up to the beam to do one hundred pull ups he doesn’t make a peep. It probably helps that Hale gives him a passing glance each time, most probably a ‘you better not fucking scream and bring Chris in again.’ The beam is a dull bronze color and Stiles can see Hale’s hands stand out against it as he pulls his weight up past his elbows. Stiles can’t tell if he’s trying to improve his fitness or just making sure it’s still there. Jerry wasn’t this strong, probably thanks to the collar.

_Stiles doesn’t want to think about Jerry._

When Hale drops back down to the floor he begins on his claw and teeth routine. This is slightly more scary, but Stiles has accepted that it’s probably not a threat. Probably. It’s slightly mesmerizing. There’s very little to do in their cell, Stiles would kill for even a book, something to keep his mind off the constant fear, misery and isolation. So Hale’s daily routine is the most interesting thing that happens.

He feels like he knows nearly every inch of Hale by heart by now. His long muscled arms, the way his stomach peaks and dips in tone. The dark brown hair that hasn’t even threatened to start receding, and makes even the tanned skin look pale.

If Stiles had a pen and paper he’d probably try drawing him. Although maybe not, he wouldn’t want to encourage Hale to say something. There might have been peace over the past few days between them, but Stiles knows better than to count on it staying that way.

_One day you’re sitting at home waiting for your dad to come home, the next you’re in the back of an armored van. Things change, quickly and drastically._

Once Hale is finished with his shift the man returns to his mattress. He doesn't put his shirt back on and instead stretches his legs out in front of him. This is not new for the routine either, Stiles knows that now Hale will begin meditating. It always starts the same Hale pointing the tips of his toes before relaxing, he points them again two more time before alternating to pushing his heels out instead. Next the man clenches his calves, it is harder to see through the pant leg which is made of a dark blue cotton, but Stiles has watched this enough times to know what is happening. His own legs ache sympathetically, so much of his time sharing the cell has been spent huddled up in the corner. Often he wakes up in the middle of the night with pins and needles due to not moving, even in sleep. With his knees still tucked up against his chest he tries pointing his toes. He does it three times but without much result.

“You have to stretch your legs out first.” Hale tells him.

It makes Stiles jump, clenching his knees tighter against his chest.

Hale sighs and goes back to ignoring him. Stiles is in two minds about initiating conversation again. Hale had made it very clear that he does not enjoy the idea of sharing space with him, and Stiles’ own crippling fear of being hurt has tampered down any interest in engaging the man. But, Stiles thinks, maybe it would make their cohabitation easier.

Slowly he stretches his legs out in front of him. The mattress is still half way up the wall, so Stiles’ legs hang over the edge when they are straight. The cold kiss of the concrete on his bare ankles is uncomfortable.

Hale is now tensing his stomach in and out, it makes the attractive scaping of his body more obvious. And Stiles skitters his eyes away. Jerry had once said something about wolves having a keen sense of smell, and Stiles would do anything other than suggest to Hale that he finds him attractive. Being assaulted isn’t attractive. Stiles would be happy if he never has sex again at this rate.

He lets out a long breath, trying to calm down after his dark thoughts.

Stiles points his toes. It hurts the muscles in his legs, but that’s probably a good thing. Pointing his heels out hurts even more, and by the time he is clenching his thighs he’s tired. Hale has his eyes closed and appears to be meditating. It looks peaceful, it gives Stiles the motivation to keep going. He gets all the way up to shrugging his shoulders before he decides he’ll just lay down and have a nap. He sleeps better for those few hours than any other time since he’s been here.

* * *

 

The problem with napping in the day and not in the night is that it means the cold gets to him even more. At least when he’s trying to sleep his body is exhausted, but this time he’s just awake and frozen.

It’s a strange kind of cold, it comes from inside him. Like an icicle tucked away leaking out through his spine. It’s a particularly cold night for him, and he’s shivering. He’s tried the toe pointing exercise he’d learned earlier, but having his knees away from his body is just too much to bear.

He has no idea how Hale sleeps like this. The man isn’t even curled up, he’s laying on his back spread out, like nothing affects him. Although the man clearly isn’t asleep, Stiles must have woken him again as he’s turned over quite a few times.

When Stiles shivers enough that his teeth rattle, Hale obviously loses his patience.

“Jesus _Christ_ ,” the man snaps, getting up and walking over to him.

That is fucking terrifying in and of itself, but Stiles loses it when Hale takes his shirt off. It’s a long sleeved woollen henley in gray, it slips off Hale’s broad shoulders in one pull.

Hale is going to try and fuck him. He’s going to hurt him. He’s going to take away what little safety Stiles had in this cell.

“No, _please_ no.” Stiles jabbers pleadingly, sitting up and bringing his legs against his body, gripping the top of his pants as if that might stop Hale from tearing them down. “I’ll stop I’ll—” Hale’s top lands on his legs, where the man has thrown it at him.

He doesn’t understand.

Hale clearly doesn’t either, frowning at him, before his eyebrows jump up his forehead. Some kind of realization dawns on him.

There’s a terse silence between them.

“...What was your cellmate doing when he made you scream?” It’s a softer question than he expected… Is the man trying to work out what he can get away with?

Stiles doesn’t want to answer, in case whatever he says Hale recreates. But maybe it’d be easier if he chose. It was always easier when Jerry didn’t fuck him, and just used his mouth.

“My—my mouth.”

Hale nods like he understands, “That all?”

Stiles doesn’t want to lie to him, is afraid to lie to him, he shakes his head.

Hale nods again, and takes a step backwards.

“That’s not,” the man sighs and rolls his eyes, “I’m not going to do any of that. I like my bedmates willing, and preferable of age.” Stiles doesn’t think to tell him that he technically is of age, the rest of Hale’s words are a revelation, “I know they keep us in cages, but I don’t think of myself as an animal. You understand?”

Stiles just nods, slightly dumbfounded. It’s like someone has taken a weight off his chest.

Hale points at the shirt, “Put that on. Under your sweater. Maybe we’ll both get some peace.”

The man turns around swiftly and returns to his pallet. His back to Stiles as if he is pointedly not watching Stiles take off his clothes to put on the extra layer.

It is a revelation, Stiles kinda wants to cry. From fear and adrenaline, from relief. From how Hale had stared at him like what he was saying was disgusting. Like _he_ was disgusting. But it was better to just to focus on the declaration that Hale wasn’t going to fuck him. It could be a lie, a way to lull him into a false sense of security: Stiles wasn’t strong enough to be too optimistic. But it was something.

He slips off his sweater—tries to not look at any of the obtrusive tattoos on his chest—and pulls on the henley. It’s warm, heated from Hale’s own skin, and smells nothing like bleach. The material is thick and weighed, a fine wool that could even be cashmere. When he finally pulls on his own sweater it’s the warmest he’s felt in a long time. Stiles holds on to that feeling and forces himself into sleep.

* * *

 

He wakes up to Chris’ voice snapping at Hale.

“Where is your shirt Hale?”

Stiles has never slept this late before, a mixture of coldness and fear keeping him constantly on the edge of wakefulness. He sits up onto his knees, ready to try and bolt if he needs to.

Hale is standing close to the bars, his intimidating grin on his lips. The man does a slow look over to Stiles, and it makes Stiles blush for a reason he can’t fathom.

Chris has an ugly look on his face. “Show me, not you Hale. Stay the fuck where you are. Stilinski, show me you’ve got it.”

“Now Chris, just what do you think I could do with a shirt anyway? You think very highly of my abilities.”

“Shut the fuck up. Stilinski, now!”

Chris doesn’t normally swear this much, it’s clear to Stiles that as much as Hale hates Chris, Chris hates him back. Stiles quickly grabs the edge of his sweater and lifts it, to show that he is in fact wearing it.

The look on Chris’ face gets uglier. It dawns on Stiles that he had assumed that Stiles was simply using it as a blanket. He can’t work out why it makes his cheeks flood a darker pink.

The whole interaction just makes Hale smirk more.

The man is more expressive and engaged whenever Chris is around, and Stiles assumes that it’s mostly down to pissing the man off.

“Get against the wall, Hale.”

It works every time.

 

* * *

 

Stiles comes to think that Hale likes him a bit more whenever he’s wearing his shirt. It’s a routine now, Hale handing it over before they go to sleep, Stiles keeping it until after the man’s daily workout.

Hale had even told him that first day that he can just keep it, and Stiles had looked at the floor and whispered out a, “It’ll be warmer if you wear it.”

Stiles thinks it’s something to do with scent, because Hale is less impressed with him whenever he comes back from showering. He wants to ask the man about it, and that in itself is new. But it’s been a couple of weeks now that they’ve shared a space and a lot of the fear has started to erode. Stiles just wants someone to talk to, or even listen to. Something to stop him hurtling down a series of thoughts about being trapped here in this place.

At least the meditating is interactive.

Hale clearly knows that Stiles is copying him, pointing his toes in time. Syncing up their deep breaths in and out. One time when they are both holding out their arms in front of them, stretching out their forearms both of their elbows click at the same time. Stiles freezes, like that might break the spell of unity between them, and then he lets out a peal of laughter. Mostly at himself that something as simple as joints clicking could scare him.

Hale opens his eye and shoots him a sly smirk. It makes Stiles laugh more.

 

* * *

 

 

There’s hard times as well. Some days Stiles can’t stop crying. It just won’t end, every time he tries to pull himself out of it, he thinks just how long he’s been here. How nothing makes sense. How he doesn’t understand anything that’s going on. How cold he is all the time, how it seeps into the still mending bone of his arm. He cries and he cries.

It annoys Hale. It makes him pace, and knocks him off his exercise routine.

It all just makes it worse, Stiles is ruining the tiny bit of stability he’s managed to claw together in this place by fucking crying, but he just can’t stop.

Once Hale shouts at him. It makes Stiles flinch enough that he knocks his head against the wall.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Hale whispers, getting back on his mattress and doing his meditation for the second time that day. Slowly Stiles tries to copy him, abating the worst of the sobs but not the feeling that he’s suffocating in this prison.

 

* * *

 

Some nights Hale jerks off.

At first it was the scariest thing he had done while Stiles had been with him.

The sound of male sex, of someone bigger than him having pleasure, leaving him shaking. Stiles does everything he can to stay silent. He feels sick.

That first time Hale gives up halfway through, it confuses Stiles and makes him even more nervous. Like Hale was just getting himself ready… Like any minute he’s going to—

“—This isn’t going to work.” Hale breaks the silence. Stiles lets out a little gasp. “If I have to promise you I’m not going to rape you, I will. If you could just give me _ten minutes_ of you not literally _quaking_ at the thought, I can finish. Do you understand me?”

Stiles nods. _He told you he’s not going to touch you, he told you he’s not going to touch you._

He takes a deep calming breath and starts to point his toes. His breathing is probably a bit too fast, and he sucks in air a little bit too harshly. That makes him dizzy, but at least covers up the noise of Hale rubbing one out.

Stiles gasps when he hears Hale let out a stifled moan, the noise of the man’s mattress shift. Stiles opens one eye and peaks over, and he can see Hale on his back, his hips thrusting into his fist.

A caustic mix of thoughts flow through Stiles: fear, attraction, arousal, nerves.

The next moment Hale is climaxing. And Stiles snaps his eyes shut again.

From then it gets easier when Hale does it. It’s not so regular, and he never has to reprimand Stiles again. Sometimes Stiles steals a look.

 

* * *

 

The thing about not being so scared by Hale is that Stiles kinda forgets how dangerous he is, that all the guards are wary of him. It’s not that Stiles isn’t scared at all, it’s just that for Stiles, he’s proved himself to be a much safer cell mate.

He doesn’t seize up any time he has to walk past him. Even when he watches Hale shift into his wolf visage, it isn’t scary for Stiles. It’s normal. Spending every waking second watching Hale is normal. In many ways, Hale is his whole universe, tracking his movements. Waiting for what he does. Wondering what he’s thinking. The only outside stimulation he gets otherwise is the shower visits, and even then it’s only when Chris is the one taking him that he gets any engagement.

Stiles knows Hale like he knows the water pipe. The sixty two bars that line the side of their cage. Like the minute of cold water that hits Stiles’ skin before the heat finally comes in the shower block.

_But when it comes down to it, Hale is dangerous._

Stiles comes back from the shower block one day, his arm is still bound, he never realized how long it took bones to heal. It’s probably been weeks since Jerry broke it. He might have passed a month living alongside Hale. _His ability to tell time has proven inadequate._ The guard who had taken him was a stranger, and had bound the arm harshly. It hurt like he’d worsened the break. Stiles didn’t want to put his arm through his sleeve so he kept it close to his body instead, his empty sleeve trailing next to him.

As he walked back in the cage the guard shut the door behind him.

 

_It all happens so fast._

 

Hale is against the wall.

 

The door closes.

 

The two guards move their guns away from Hale.

 

Stiles walks forward but his sleeve is caught in the door.

 

He stumbles as it pulls him back.

 

Hale spins around.

 

The door isn’t locked properly.

 

The guards have already taken a step towards the exit of the building.

 

Hale is at the door.

 

Hale is on one of the guards.

 

The man screams.

 

Stiles screams at the burst of blood that splatters on the floor.

 

The man is dead, lifeless on the floor.

 

The second man raises his gun, Hale is on him, too.

 

Sharp claws at his throat.

 

Two claps of tranquilisers shooting into Hale’s gut.

 

The wolf staggers but goes for the man again anyway.

 

He bites the man’s shoulder, missing his throat.

 

Stiles is stood frozen in fear.

 

More men arrive.

 

They shoot Hale again.

 

One of them makes his veins go black.

 

Hale goes down.

 

Stiles realizes he’s still screaming.

 

They take Hale away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Please get in touch if you think the tags are wrong/need to be added.  
> 2\. I'm gonna give it a few days between chapters to give you guys a chance to feedback & allow me the chance to fix things and maybe add in some stuff if needed.  
> 3\. Thank you so much for reading! Kudos and comments literally support writers. It's free, like the content we give you. Hopefully that's enough (:


	3. Everything can change so quickly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seeing yourself as you see others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying to work out the most natural chapter breaks for a massive doc is not easy, so I'm playing it by ear. At this rate they'll all be ridiculously different lengths, but oh well.
> 
> Thank you everyone for your support, it's been super interesting hearing your feed back and I've already tweaked some things based off your comments.

Stiles sits on his mattress and waits. 

He doesn’t really know what for, but he’s waiting. For normalcy to return. For his little routine to patch itself back together. He’s scared that they’re going to kill Hale. 

He tells himself it’s because he doesn’t want to risk a new cell mate. And it’s true. He’s only had two and one of them almost killed him. The fact that Hale just killed someone else doesn’t really factor into it. Hale doesn’t hurt him. And right now, that’s still a big plus in his mind. But it’s not just that. It’s something… else. Cabin fever, or Stockholm Syndrome if that can include ridiculous preferences to werewolves that don’t even talk to you. 

Chris had shot the second guard. The man was still alive, whining and begging for help, and Chris had shot him. Stiles had screamed at that too. He’d looked into Chris’ eyes and thought him a monster. Chris had looked away and barked at someone to clean up the mess, following Hale’s slumped body out the building where it was being dragged by two men.

There must have been a reason Chris shot the man.

Stiles doesn’t think he’ll ask. 

Hale doesn’t come back until hours later. His body is still slumped, but he’s awake. He’s telling the men dragging him in all the disgusting and violent things he’ll do to them one day. It makes the younger one look a bit green. Stiles doesn’t feel any sympathy, he’s mostly relieved that Hale is back.

Chris is watching over it all, critically. He has that ugly look on his face, especially when Stiles gets up to look at Hale better. Stiles doesn’t understand him. The man walks in the cell and hands Stiles a clean cloth. 

“What?”

“You have blood on your face, use this to wash it off.” His voice is soft, he’s staring into Stiles’ eyes like it means something.

Hale lets out a snort of laughter, “Get the fuck out of here Argent.” Then laughs some more, muttering something about this being  _ his house. _

“Shut up Hale.” Chris snaps, the moment lost. 

All the guards file out after that and leave them alone. It’s a slightly sobering moment, that Hale had clearly just killed a man and maimed another and they were happy to just leave him in here with him. Stiles suddenly has the sneaking suspicion that those weren’t the first guards Hale had killed.

Stiles looks at Hale, the man looks like shit. He still has blood over his mouth—which is probably the guard’s—but as well as that he has deep burned scars dotted up his chest. One of which is weeping blood. There’s heavy bruises across his ribs as well, and where someone shot him with the black stuff there are vivid ebony veins spiraling across his arm. 

Delicately, Stiles goes to the faucet to wet the cloth so he can wipe it over his face and remove some of the blood. There’s no mirror, so he has to just rub everywhere.

Hale starts laughing again, it sounds kind of horrifying this time.

“It’s in your hair.” 

Stiles tries rubbing his hair. 

“And your ear.”

“Well that’s just unsanitary.” Stiles whispers to himself, it makes Hale laugh even more. 

Stiles turns around to look at him, “Are you… okay?”

“Fucking peachy! Having the  _ best  _ day of my life so far.”

They’ve already officially passed the length of all other conversations they’ve had so far. It’s a little bit exhilarating. Talking to someone, talking to Hale. Stiles kinda wants to sit down and have a rest.

“Did they do something to you?”

“They did  _ everything  _ to me. You still have blood in your ear.” Hale is looking at him from upside down on the mattress. It’s… fun to see him so playful. Although also a bit daunting.

Stiles tries to rub his ear.

“Come here.” Hale calls. 

Stiles takes two steps back. 

“Tsskk, that’s the  _ wrong _ way.” 

“I think… I think I’ll stay over here.”

Hale rolls his eyes before closing them again. He starts humming, and then coughing. And then he coughs up a clot of blood before collapsing back on the mattress. The humming returns.

Stiles thinks his head will explode. There’s a part of him that wants to get closer. It’s such a refreshing feeling, it reminds him of who he was before all of this. Impulsive, curious, talkative. All the things that were beaten out of him since he got here. He takes a step forward, then two, then another so he can peer down at him. Hale’s arm come out grabs his leg and Stiles falls onto the mattress, kneeing Hale in the stomach as he goes.

“Shit, fuck!” Hale shouts, pushing Stiles to the side so he ends up crumpled against the wall.

“What the fuck, what the—why?” Stiles can feel the tale tail feelings of fear rush back through him, but it’s so amazing to not be screaming for once.

Hale coughs a couple more times, holding his stomach. 

“You looked like you were going to fall. All three of you. Give me that.” He takes the damp cloth from Stiles and wipes the other ear that Stiles had tried wiping, before dropping it in his lap.

Stiles doesn’t really know what to do now, one of his legs is trapped under the heavy muscle of Hale’s thigh.

“Are you going to let me get up?” He asks quietly.

“Yes.” Hale answers, not moving.

Stiles starts to pull his leg out from under the man, but Hale grabs his arms. “No, just… wait. Stop moving the floor. Just  _ stay. _ ”

Stiles stops moving. He tells himself not to be scared, it half works. He’s curious, eager to take advantage of Hale’s vulnerable state. The urge is a welcome one. It makes him feel  _ normal. _

After a few minutes of silence he picks up the cloth and begins removing the dried blood from Hale’s jaw. He only flinches when Hale lets out a low growl, but it’s not an angry one…. Stiles knows from the nights where he’s listened to the man jerk off that it’s one of pleasure. It makes Stiles’ stomach flip over nervously. 

“What’s your name?” Hale asks out of nowhere.

“Stiles, well, that’s what everyone calls me.  _ Did  _ call me.” He jabbering a bit, but he thinks that is natural for someone so close to a werewolf’s mouth.

“Sti- eeel- ssss” Hale tries out the word in his mouth.

Stiles can’t help but laugh, “Are you stoned?” 

“I hope so. I think they punctured a lung.” 

“Will you heal?” Stiles has another moment of fear that Hale might die on him, and then once again he'll be facing down the prospect of another cell mate. 

“Probably. I’ve done it before.”

Stiles pauses in his wiping. “Have you killed one of them before?”

Hale opens his eyes at him, giving him a discerning look. “Yes. Five of them so far… you got a problem with that?”

Stiles thinks about the man who Hale ripped the throat out of. He’d seen him a few times before, he’d been in the room once as Jerry fucked him. Didn’t even blink, just walked out again like everything was fine. 

“No. I might even be glad.”

Hale closes his eyes again and smiles, “Good answer.”

Stiles starts wiping again. “What’s your name?”

“Peter Hale.” 

Peter. He didn’t look like a Peter. Although he didn’t not look like a Peter either, Stiles had tried a lot of names on him over the past weeks. Some of them silly, a lot of them strange and mythical. It made sense it was a normal name though, Jerry had a boring as fuck name even though he was a wolf.

“Pea- eeet- er,” Stiles says quietly.

It makes Peter laugh. And Stiles revels in the sound.

Stiles assumed that Peter would get more sober as the time went by, but they must have just shot him up when he arrived, as over the next hour Peter just got more chatty and delirious.

“I didn’t mean to make you scream.” He says, his eyes closed and his hand petting Stiles’ head heavily. It makes Stiles a bit dizzy.

“It’s okay.”

“I could hear you all those times from in here.”

Stiles doesn’t say anything.

“They were sickening the first time around, but now I know, they’re probably worse.”  _This was the last thing Stiles thought would come up between them._

“You didn’t make me scream like that, though.”

“No. Not like that. I probably couldn’t even get it up.”

Stiles doesn’t expect to laugh at that, but he’s a bit delirious himself.

“What does  _ that  _ mean?”

“Every time I try and get my dick out you get your—” he makes a vague gesture in the air “—fear all over the place. It makes my dick sad.”

Stiles laughs again, “Does it cry?”  _Stiles is definitely having some kind of mental break down if he's risking saying things like this._

“Only after I rub it better.” Peter has a sly grin on his face at that, and goes back to petting Stiles. 

Stiles has tried his best to clean up the wounds. The one that was bleeding has finally dried up, but the burns don’t look any better. 

“Sorry for ruining it.”

“It’s okay. Then you do your little breathy noises, and I pretend you’re jerking off too.”

Stiles flushes red and lets out a trill of nervous laughter. “What! No! You can’t tell me that!”

“It’s the only way to do it. And it works, it only works if I knew you wanted it.”

“You know I’m going to just  _ die  _ the next time you jerk off now?”

Peter grins at him again, he’s still not moved from his position on his back. “Your embarrassment smells nice, better than the fear.”

“I probably smell like that a lot.”

“Not as much as the fear.”

Stiles shrugs, it makes Peter bump his hand onto Stiles’ nose instead of his head. “There’s lots of things to be scared of.”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

“You’re not scared, though.”

“Sometimes. Mostly I’m angry.”

“I hope that kicks in for me soon.”

“Another good answer.”

 

* * *

 

 

The sky is losing light, and Stiles is getting more tired by the minute. It’s nice and warm next to Peter but he needs to lie down. The excitement of the day getting to him.

“I think I have to sleep now.” He admits. 

“Mmhhh, that’s a good idea.” Peter hasn’t been as chatty over the past hour, but at least still happy to answer Stiles’ questions.

“I… I should go.”

“Probably. Wait.” Peter pulls him down onto his chest, and pushes his warm nose into the Stiles’ neck. A flush of embarrassment, fear and excitement runs through Stiles. It makes Peter growl again.

“You said you only like willing, right?” Stiles says quickly.

“Shhh. Don’t worry. I told you. I can’t get my dick up.” He laughs to himself, and scents Stiles again, “Mmh, you smell like me.”

Stiles lets himself relax, laying his head on Peter’s shoulder, his body against Peter’s chest with his broken wrist tucked between them. “That’s rather self absorbed of you.”

“It’s good. It’s better like this. Makes all your flighty emotions easier to deal with.”

“Is that why you don’t like it when I go and shower?”

“Noticed that huh? Clever, clever.” Peter burrows his nose closer to Stiles’ skin. “Yes, that and it makes you smell like Argent.”

“You hate him.”

“Yes. I hate all of them. But especially Argent.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

Stiles shrugs, he thinks of all the nice things Chris has done for him. “He’s better than the rest.”

“He’s not. He’s toying with you. It makes him as cruel as his sister.”

“I haven’t met his sister.” 

“Good. You can’t. Don’t trust him, any of them.”

“Funny, that’s what he said about you.”

Peter snorts, “He would.”

“Can I?”

“What?”

“Trust you?”

“You probably shouldn’t. I wouldn’t pick you over getting out of here.”

Stiles chews on that thought for a moment.

“But the rest of the stuff?”

“Yeah. You can trust me on that.”

“That’s good. I don’t think I’d survive if they put me with someone else.”

Peter grips him a bit harder, before relaxing. He brings up his other arm to start petting Stiles again. 

“Maybe you’ll get out of here too.”

Stiles falls asleep on Peter, his body warm for once and relaxed. It’s strangely easier to not be scared about Peter (not Hale anymore, Peter.) when he’s lying on top of him. As if he doesn’t have to worry about what Peter’s doing because he’s right here.

In the early hours he wakes to Peter carrying him back to his own mattress, “Shhh.” The man answers when he tries to question it. He’s placed gently down, “Go back to sleep.”

* * *

  
They don’t keep up their easy conversation after that.

In fact, Peter shuts down all communication. Stiles hadn’t realized how many small words they’d been having between them every day until Peter starts outright ignoring him.

Stiles wonders if he’s done something wrong, if Peter is angry at him. But mostly the man just ignores him.  
They still trade the henley back and forth though, and synchronize their meditation…. So it’s not bad. It just hurts to have a lifeline thrown at you, just for it to be snatched away. ' _It's stupid to hope for good things in this place_ ,' Stiles reprimands himself, ' _I should be happy I'm away from Jerry, there's not point wishing for more than that.'_

Stiles holds the memory of their playful conversation in mind though, going over it, enjoying the jokes and the feeling of being himself for a second. It hurts less than remembering who he was before all this, more real and less like he's about to fall apart over the  _awfulness_ of what's happening to him. It was like waking up for a second, but being unable to keep hold of the consciousness before he slips back under. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Please get in touch if you think the tags are wrong/need to be added.  
> 2\. I'm gonna give it a few days between chapters to give you guys a chance to feedback & allow me the chance to fix things and maybe add in some stuff if needed.  
> 3\. Thank you so much for reading! Kudos and comments literally support writers. It's free, like the content we give you. Hopefully that's enough (:
> 
> (Also after a year of double spacing I've returned to single spacing, if that's a problem for anyone please don't hesitate to mention if it makes it harder for you to read).


	4. Shifts In Perspective

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The same thing every day and expecting a different result.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forcing myself to wait every four days is pretty painful, but it's actually really working. I get a chance to see your feed back, and go over the fic to choose where the next chapter would be sensible. 
> 
> All your words have been so kind, I love that I get to experience this fic through all of your eye's.

 

“Can you tell me what I am?” Stiles asks again, tired and without too much conviction when Chris rebinds his arm. He’d been crying all morning, for which reason this time he did not know. Hale had grabbed him when he was going to be taken to the shower, which made both Stiles and Chris go a bit haywire. The man just wanted his shirt back before it was washed however and he had looked a little bit apologetic for the fact it was Stiles’ broken arm he’d grabbed. Hale had made a slightly muffled gasp sound when he saw the tattoos that littered Stiles’ body, it was the first time he’d seen them. Normally giving Stiles privacy as he changed (privacy Stiles rarely gave him, but the wolf didn’t seem to care). Hale had given Chris a truly murderous look over Stiles’ head after that, ignoring the man’s shouts to “ _Get against the wall or I will shoot you Hale,_ ” until he had his shirt back.

It at least confirmed the idea that Hale didn’t like the smell of bleach, after that he would always took his shirt off when he was taken out of the cell.

“Stiles we’re not playing this game again.”

“I don’t want—” Stiles stops himself, there’s no way he can say the words _I don’t want to go home,_ “I mean, I just want to know what I am. I’ll believe you, whatever you say. I just need to know the reason I’m here.”

It’s the longest sentence he’s said in months, and it leaves him a little breathless.

Chris has a pinched look on his face, and doesn’t say anything for a while.

Stiles waits.

He’s gotten good at waiting in silence.

His high school teachers would be so proud.

His dad too.

He starts to cry, it was stupid to start thinking about his dad.

“Shit.” Chris says, balling up some of the bandage and handing it to Stiles so he can wipe away the tears. “Okay, I guess it makes no difference anyway. You’re a phoenix.”

Stiles looks at him with a frown.

“A what? Like a bird? I’m not a bird.”

Chris doesn’t answer him, and Stiles feels a bubble of frustration under his skin. Frustration, what a novel experience. It’s been so long since he’s been together enough to be _frustrated_. Scared, scared of being hurt. Of dying. Of being raped. Scared that any moment this whole shit show might double down and get worse. Frustration at someone’s lack of communication is almost a relief.

“I’m not a bird.” He says a bit louder, “I’m not that. I don’t even know what they are: you’ve made a mistake.”

“Stilinksi calm down.”

“My name is Stiles.” Stiles snaps at him.

“Stilinski _calm down._ ”

“My name is Stiles! I’m just some kid! I’m not supposed to be here!” He’s shouting, it’s so much better than screaming. Because he’s choosing to do it. He wants to shout until his lungs ache. He wants to grab the first aid kit and throw it at Chris’ head. He wishes he had Peter’s long deadly fangs so get gnash them, and threaten to bite him. “You’re wrong! You’re _wrong!_ ”

“ _Stilinski!_ ” Chris grips his broken wrist, the pain shoots through Stiles and he screams.

It makes Chris panic, he holds his hand over Stiles’ mouth, letting up the pressure on the broken bone and staring wildly at Stiles like he’d just sprouted wings. _Which would apparently be normal as Chris seems to think he’s a bird._

Stiles pants into the damp curve of Chris’ hand. The fear is back. Chris might hurt him, he might have gone too far. Chris might send him back to Jerry. All the things he took for granted a second ago rush back to him, and it makes him crumble.

When Chris lets up his hand Stiles starts begging him, “Please don’t send me back to Jerry. Please. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Just don’t send me back, I’ll do anything if you keep me away from him. I don’t want to get r—” _no, no, no,_ “—I won’t survive.”

Chris looks like he’s having his own melt down, he looks at the door twice, like he’s either hoping someone comes through or he’s worried that they will. Eventually he swears lowly in a breath, and puts his arm around Stiles.

“Hey hey, it’s okay. I’m not going to send you back to him. You’re okay. Just calm down and you’ll be fine.” He rubs his hand down Stiles’ side, quick little rubs like he’s trying to bring the blood back.

Stiles leans forward and puts his head against Chris’ chest. It’s such a bittersweet comfort. He wants to stay here, with someone touching him without malicious intent. He wants to crawl into Chris’ arms and be taken home. He just wants to go home. He wants to see his dad. Chris is a poor substitute: one who is offering him this meagre comfort, but a mechanism that keeps him here all the same.

“None of this makes any sense.” Stiles says against the thick fabric of Chris’ shirt.

Chris brings his hand up and massages his scalp. It was shorn short just before he got here but now it’s long enough to tussle. The man doesn’t say anything else, and Stiles hates him for it, pushing himself closer into the embrace.

Inevitably Stiles is taken back to their building.

Peter is standing right up against the bars near the door, his face twisted into a snarl. He doesn’t hesitate when they tell him to get against the wall though, and as soon as Stiles is through he moves between Stiles and the bars: and thus Chris.

It’s strange. Stiles doesn’t understand it, although maybe he does. Chris is messing up the lines between captor and captive, Peter has every right to be angry. He feels a bit guilty for his moment of solace in the man’s arms, but mostly he’s shaken up.

When they’re alone again Peter gives him a sharp look, takes a few steps forward to gauge something.

“What?” Stiles asks, a bit nervous, resisting the urge to step back.

“You smell like Argent.”

Stiles shrugs, he doesn’t really know what to say. _‘Sorry I hugged our guard?’_

“Did he hurt you?”

“No, well yes… How did you know?”

Peter’s lips pinch. “You screamed.”

Stiles forgot how that carried. He has a sudden memory of a doped up Peter telling him that he didn’t like it when he screamed, especially now he knew what it meant. “He didn’t… do the other thing, that makes me scream. It was just my—” Stiles raises the arm at Peter.

Peter looks at him arm critically for a moment before returning to his pallet. He sits down and begins pointing his toes, his eyes closed more forcefully than usual. Stiles isn’t sure if this is an invitation to join him—since Peter had been decidedly non communicative of late—but he scampers to his own mattress all the same.

He points his toes. He points his heels. He stresses his calves. He tenses his thighs. He cries. Four large tear drops running down his face. He doesn’t really know why. It’s all of it. He tenses his stomach. Blowing out shaky breaths each time. Stiles opens his eyes, he realizes that Peter is ahead of him but he’s doing more than the requisite three arm stretches to let him catch up. It’s okay, Stiles tells himself. It’s okay. Things are already better. Things are improving. He’s going to be okay.

It feels empty.

 

* * *

 

 

The temperature drops that night. Stiles realizes for the first time that up until now the coldness felt like it was coming from inside him, because now there’s a bitter wind running under the door to the outhouse their cell is in he can feel it. Earlier that night a guard had dumped two ratty looking blankets through the hatch, but it didn’t really help. His fingers and toes felt frozen, like little icicles attached to his body. He’d been worried that the blankets meant that Peter wouldn’t give him his henley, but the man had handed it over all the same when the light had begun to set. The sky was still pretty light, and Stiles realizes belatedly that it’s probably from the growing moon each night. He looks over at Peter to see if there’s any sign of unrest; any sign he might recreate the final night with Jerry.

Had it been a month yet? More?

Stiles has no idea. He’s had no way of keeping track of the days. Due to the bandage on his arm they have been taking him out more than just once a week to shower. (Was that Chris’ doing? Maybe he should count all the times someone other than Chris took him out?) He would count how often Peter was taken but they always seemed to have more tests for the wolves.

Some evenings Peter came back exhausted, his hand shaking slightly as he rested it on his thigh.

Stiles has thought about asking him what happens when he’s gone, but decided against it. Not least because they weren’t talking, but there were lots of things he’d rather not talk about either. Their silence felt like solidarity this time.

But it was just so _cold_. Stiles’ teeth were chattering, and his arm ached something awful. He feels like he haa an iceberg growing inside him, and his brain unhelpfully supplies: _maybe that’s your egg_. He laughs, a bit hysterically. An unhappy chuckle bursting out of his mouth as he decides that he was definitely going insane.

Maybe that’s what they wanted. To see what happens when you convince someone they’re a bird. Maybe he’d start eating worms. He laughs again at the thought, and Peter answers him with a low growl.

Stiles shuts up.

But he’s so cold. He’s going to go crazy from the cold. He’s going to die in the corner of a cell, because they think he’s some kind of animal that can withstand it. _He’s so cold._

Stiles thinks back to how warm Peter was, the night he slept next to him.

It wasn’t worth the threat.

Wolves probably ate birds anyway.

“I’m not a bird.”

He’s going to go crazy.

“What?” Peter answers him, his voice rough. The man was probably actually asleep at some point. Before Stiles’ hysteria woke him.

“I’m cold.”

Peter snorts, and rolls over to his side.

It’s not worth it…

…It might be worth it.

“Peter,” he whispers, like that might make his request more palatable, “can I sleep next to you again?”

“No.” The man answers instantly. It’s a firm answer, it makes him think of Chris. He spends all his time being silent and when he finally asks something they still say no. Frustration returns to him, emboldening his words.

“Please, we can trade for it.”

“You have nothing to offer.”

Stiles thinks of what he has. Peter has already given him the shirt, and he doesn’t want to give it back. And even if he did, it’s unlikely Peter would agree to it as a valid trade anyway. He thinks about Jerry eating all the food.

“You can eat more of the food.”

“I’d rather not watch Argent skulk around trying to pass you more.”

Stiles shoves his hands under his armpits. It hurts his wrist, but it’s worth it all the same.

He can’t offer Peter what else Jerry took from him….

....Even if he did, Peter probably wouldn’t want it. _Willing and legal._

His thoughts stray back to what Peter had said, about jerking off. He chews his lip, thinking about it. It’s not too scary. Peter probably wouldn’t cross the line, it’s just a bit of acting.

“I’ll moan for you, for real this time, when you jerk off.”

Peter sits up so quickly there’s a slight gust of air that stirs up some of the dust on the floor. His eyes are red and he’s looking straight at Stiles. A mixture of shock and anger on his face. _Does Peter think he’s mocking him?_

Stiles can feel his stomach curl over (probably all those eggs) but the frustration at being so _ineffectual_ all the time buoys him. He closes his eyes and takes in some calming breaths, blocking out the red glare from across the cell. On the third breath out he _whines_.

“Fuck!” Peter curses, and then Stiles snaps his eyes open as Peter is now right beside him. The man grabs the edge of the mattress and drags it all the way over to his own; Stiles having to grip onto the edge so he doesn’t roll off it, so fast is the journey. Peter pulls the mattress on top of his own, pushing the edge of it up against the wall so he can manhandle Stiles against it without his back touching the cold concrete.

He’s scared, it’s happening too quickly. Peter said he only wanted willing, did he step too far?

“Shhh, shh,” Peter gets down on the mattress, crowding close and petting his hair. “It’s okay, just this. Just what you said, do it again. Make those noises for me.”

Stiles is already panting a little bit from the fear but his closes his eyes and tries to slow down his breathing. It was pretty embarrassing making the noise the first time when he was on the opposite side of the room. Doing it inches from someone else's face is a whole other scenario. Belatedly he realizes he should have specified that he meant while still over in his own bed, but it was too late for that now. He was already here.

Warm. He feels warmer already.

He breaths out a few times, he’s a bit nervous so the breath in his like a gasp. It’s not unlike the sound he’d make when jerking off back at home. Then he whines again, quietly, but it feels so loud in the close environment between their bodies.

Peter growls in content, pets his hair again for encouragement. Stiles whines again, trying to make it a bit breathier. Play up to it a little bit, he thinks about the noises he would hear at home when watching porn. The girls always moaned so loud, is that what he’s supposed to sound like? The men made noises too, what a time to regret that he’s never watched gay porn.

It gets a bit harder when he can hear the sound of Peter jerking off. It’s such a visceral sound, the slide of foreskin rubbing over a thick head. He knows it’s thick, he’s looked. Because of fear or curiosity, he’s unsure. It’s bigger than Jerry’s.

Fear dwells in his stomach, it cuts off a whine.

“Shh, it’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you, I want you to feel good. Come on Stiles, make those pretty noises for me.” Peter touches Stiles’ mouth with his thumb, dragging down the lower lip like he could draw out the noises. Stiles indulges him, and lets out a moan. Thinking about how warm he is, how nice it is to share body heat. To be tucked against someone, protected from the cold. Someone who isn’t going to hurt him.

It must be working as Peter growls back at him, letting out his own groan. Stiles keeps his eyes closed but he can imagine what he’d see, Peter’s heavy cock appearing and disappearing from his fist. Bright red eyes looking at him. Stiles can feel the mattress rock in the effort of Peter’s ministrations, and then of course the powerful warmth coming off the man.

Stiles moans again, his breath dancing over the thumb still on his lip.

“Touch yourself,” Peter whines out himself, Stiles’ eyes flutter open and he blushes again renewed at how close Peter’s dick is to him. Peter’s hips are rocking forward, like he’s daring himself to rub it against Stiles. It’s a caustic sight that sends ripples of confusion through Stiles.

“I can’t—”

“Just pretend, I don’t have to see. Just, touch yourself. Willing remember, you don’t have to be worried, just—” Peter lets go of his cock to take Stiles’ unhurt hand and drag it down his body. He’s not holding too hard, enough that Stiles could flinch away, but he goes with it. Hesitating at the band of his pants, but when Peter lets go, dipping inside.

He hisses at his cold hand against his intimate skin. Apparently that works for Peter though as he goes back to jerking himself off, faster now.

Stiles’ cock is soft, it’s too cold. He’s been too scared. Sex is pretty much ruined for him now, even as he cups the head and massages it, he can’t get an erection. Peter either can’t tell or is truly okay with the pretense though, as he butts the side of Stiles’ head with his nose and whispers, “Keep going. Does it feel good?”

Stiles nods, and it’s not even a total lie. He does feel good, warm. A bit sheepish and ridiculous cupping his soft prick, but he’s got what he wanted. He did something. He made something happen.

“Yes,” Stiles breathes out, rocking his hips forward experimentally, causing Peter’s prick to brush against the material of his sweater.

“Fuck, fuck, _fuck!_ ” Peter shouts, the hand that was on Stiles’ mouth moves to drag up his sweater—his own and Peter’s—to reveal his pale stomach. Stiles’ panting has it quivering, aided by his faux jerking of his cock.

“That’s it, fuck _fuck_ , that’s it!” Peter pushes the hot tip against Stiles’ flesh and it feels like a brand. Causing Stiles to hiss, his stomach tensing repeatedly, squirming under the pulses of white cum that strip against his decidedly slim abdomen.

Peter hitches up so he has more leverage to thrust against him, not even jerking his cock anymore, using the slick surface of Stiles’ body to drag the foreskin back and forth over the slit spilling his cum. “Fuck!” Peter finally says, not moving anymore, but just holding himself against Stiles.

Stiles has stopped whining, he didn’t know when, he was just too entranced watching Peter jerk off on him. His cock is a little bit more interested, not enough to be hard, but enough that makes Stiles wonder what it would have been like if he’d never met someone like Jerry. If he’d explored sex, and bodies, and men, with someone like Peter. If he’d met him at a coffee shop, or a book store. Maybe. Maybe he would try it just in case, just to see. Without fear, or wondering whether this person only likes you because you’re here.

Peter ducks down and Stiles for one hysterical second thinks he’s going to kiss him. _His first kiss_. But instead Peter just tucks his face into the groove of Stiles’ neck. Taking in deep lungfuls of Stiles’ scent.

Awkwardly Stiles lets go of his cock, and slips his hands out of his pants, mindful of the release decorating his stomach. “I guess I don’t smell like Chris anymore?”

Peter growls out a laugh, Stiles can feel a smile on his lips against his skin, “Not at all. You smell like me.”

Stiles is blushing, trying not to feel awkward. “Tsk, your egoism is showing again.” His voice sounds breathy, like all the moaning got to him, but it’s nice to hear sarcasm again. Sarcasm. _He was once known for being a sarcastic little brat_. Mouthing off whenever he could. It was so strange remembering parts of himself, like he’d been in a coma forever. He held on to these fragments, desperate not to let them get away again.

Peter just pushes his nose closer against Stiles’ jaw. Maybe this is something Peter misses, as a wolf. Being close enough to scent someone, have them smell like you. It must be hard being a wolf in here, Stiles muses. Although at least Peter doesn’t have to worry about being cold.

The man puts his own dick away and ghosts his fingers over the still wet cum. “Can I?” he asks, and Stiles says yes, even though he doesn’t know what to. Is this a normal sex thing? Is there etiquette? Does this even count as sex if Stiles never got hard?

Peter is just gently rubbing his emission into Stiles’ skin. It feels nice, relaxing. He tenses up when Peter’s hand drifts low enough to touch the band of Stiles’ pants, but he doesn’t go inside. The slick quickly dries like this. Stiles thinks that he must smell even more like Peter, which was probably the point. He’d only just gone to shower, so it’d be a while until he’d be able to wash it off. Stiles didn’t mind. It didn’t feel like it did whenever Jerry had cum on him. It was the best sex Stiles had ever had.

“Does this mean I get to talk to you now?” Stiles asks, emboldened by the intimacy.

“No.”

“Oh.”

“Now we sleep, tomorrow you can talk.”

“Oh, I see, you’re actually an ass.”

Peter smirks, “One hundred percent.”

Peter rearranges them to his own comfort, sliding his arm under Stiles’ head and boxing him in with his longer legs. They share both blankets, and Stiles is nestled between his own mattress against the wall and Peter’s broad chest. The man’s jaw resting above his head. It’s warm. He’s actually warm. Even though it’s the coldest night they’ve had: Stiles is warm.  


* * *

 

 

Stiles wakes that morning to Peter growling. It says a lot about how far he’s come that that doesn’t make him scream. Stiles thinks most people would, waking up pressed against something that big and strong _growling._ You just get a bit desensitised to it after a while, and Peter had growled about twenty times in the night when Stiles accidentally kicked him or tried to wriggle around too much.

This was some pretty intense growling though, and Peter had—somehow—gotten even closer.

“I said _against the wall_ Hale,” comes an angry voice from beyond the cage.

Oh. _Oh._

Chris was definitely there, they must have slept in past morning and it was food drop time.

Stiles wasn’t really sure what Peter was waiting for. He normally always did something to piss off Chris whenever the man was there, but nothing that would prolong the man being around.

Stiles makes a leap of faith, “I’ll stay here. I won’t move until he’s gone.”

Peter goes stock still for a second, before snorting out some laughter. “Clever, clever.” He answers, before getting up.

As an illicit act of rebellion, Stiles keeps his eyes closed. He doesn’t really want to look at Chris, _what might be on the man’s face anyway?_ Sympathy? Anger? Betrayal? What if the man punishes him for not looking by sending him back to Jerry? Chris had said he wouldn’t, but Peter told him not to trust him… although Chris had told Stiles not to trust Peter, and look where he is now.

It was all too confusing. It was all wrong. Ridiculous, unuseful. There was no normalcy in what was happening so there was no point trying to work it out.

Peter drops a granola bar in front of him, signalling that Chris was gone and that apparently he was free to move now. Stiles shoots Peter a grin, pleased with his second moment of being called clever by the man. Peter just rolls his eyes, finishing off his own bar and starting his exercise routine. He encourages Stiles to try some of the exercises today, at least the sit ups, which Stiles wrinkles his nose at.

It’s a strange start to a tentative friendship though, but it makes sense that their restrictive lives and routines are all they'd have to share with one another anyway.

 

And then they take Peter away for the rest of the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Please get in touch if you think the tags are wrong/need to be added.  
> 2\. I'm gonna give it a few days between chapters to give you guys a chance to feedback & allow me the chance to fix things and maybe add in some stuff if needed.  
> 3\. Thank you so much for reading! Kudos and comments literally support writers. It's free, like the content we give you. Hopefully that's enough (:
> 
>  
> 
> _So when writing this fic I had considered adding in an extra chapter between the 'stoned night' scene and the 'kinda sex' scene to make it more obvious that there's been some time between the two incidents, but in the end that would have just been filler, so I left it like this. I love slow transitions of character's actions, but I think there's enough desperation in both Stiles' and Peter's lives right now that a sudden attempt of physical connection is actually understandable. Feel free to tell me if it felt rushed to you in the comments._


	5. Fitting It All Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Learning a little more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for the lovely comments. I'm hoping between the last chapter and this one some of the questions you all asked are starting to get answered. I hope you enjoy this instalment (:

 

It’s all power plays, Stiles can see that. It’s between Chris and Peter, and Chris is clearly winning. He has all the cards, and by cards Stiles means guns and tranquilizers. They do clean out the cage however while Peter is gone, Stiles standing in the corner awkwardly watching them. No one is scared of him, they’re all armed but none of them are pointing anything at him. It’s for the best, less likely to go off by accident. And what’s Stiles going to do anyway? Cry them to death?

They separate the pallets again, dragging Stiles’ off to the side. He can’t work out if that’s some kind of comment, or just ease. They also shove some polystyrene in some of the worst gaps in the walls and around the windows, to block out the draft. Again, that could be some kind of comment, or perhaps they've finally noticed how cold the cell is. Stiles' cell with Jerry wasn't this draughty, even if it was smaller and in a worst state of hygiene. 

Chris wasn’t there for that bit, but he comes when they’re almost done and offers Stiles a shower.

“Can I not?”

One of the guards shoot him a dirty look, like it’s an insult that he’s questioned Chris. It probably is, he just doesn’t want to smell like bleach again. “It’s just that it’s cold... I don’t want to get wet, I might catch something.”

Chris lets him stay.

Stiles feels effectual.

 

* * *

 

 

“What did they do to you?” Stiles asks that night.

“Nothing.”

“You have the burns again.”

“Okay, some things.”

“Did they dope you up again?”

“Unfortunately not, I could do with a vacation.”

They haven’t done any sex things tonight, probably because Peter is exhausted from wherever he’s been. He’s not normally gone that long, so _something_ must have happened. Peter still lets Stiles sleep next to him though, so he counts it as a win. _He’s effectual._

“I don’t think Chris likes you very much.”

“Mmhh, you’re probably right.”

“I don’t think he liked me sleeping next to you.” He’s whispering, but his cold nose is pressed against Peter’s sternum, so the man can probably hear him.

“Surprise surprise, the control freak.”

“I think he’s trying to watch out for me.” Peter moves then, running a hand up Stiles’ spine so it grips in Stiles’ ever growing hair. It’s not harsh, and for a second Stiles thinks Peter is just petting him again until he pulls Stiles’ head back so they can make eye contact.

“He’s not looking out for you.”

“I know, I get it—he’s one of them—”

“Stiles, if all the other guards died tomorrow. If whatever program they’re running here grinds to halt and it was Chris’ choice on what to do. Do you think he’d let you go?”

The answer came to mind instantly, like a jigsaw puzzle slotting into place.

“No… He’d kill us all. He’d think it was merciful.”

Peter smiles at him. It’s an amazing smile, it makes Stiles’ heart trip over itself, doused by the fact they’re talking about their imminent death.

“You’re a clever little thing really.”

Stiles shoots him a smile back, tentative. “I’ve managed to survive this long.”

Peter nods, then pinches his lips.

“Do you think Chris wants to fuck you?”

“What? What the fuck!” Stiles sits up, quickly. Something about it makes him scared. Suddenly all the moments he was alone with the man feels sinister. “Why would you say that? Do you think he does?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I asked.” Peter is still laying on his side, not engaging with Stiles' panic.

“Shit! Shit, fuck! I miss the days when I didn’t know men wanted to stick their dicks in me.”

Peter rolls his eyes, although there might be glimmer of guilt there, sitting up as well.

“It’d be good for you if he did.” He says

“How the fuck would it be good for me?” There would probably be a time when Stiles is amazed that he’s swearing at Peter, but right now it’s inconsequential.

“People find it hard to kill those they’ve been intimate with.”

“Yeah well, that didn’t stop Jerry.”

There’s a pause, Stiles feels sick just for saying it out loud. He stares resolutely at the corner of the cell, where his bed used to be. Peter snags his chin and brings him back to look at him.

“I’m trying to give you advice that might get you out of here.” His words are firm, but there’s a softness to his expression. Stiles flicks his eyes over the man’s face, unsure. Unwilling to hear it.

“....Okay. Okay fine, tell me what you mean.”

“If he wants you, let him. He’s a proud man that stands by his principles, but if you can get him to bend one, like not fucking his prisoners…. You might be able to get him to bend another, like letting one of them go.”

It makes sense, logically. And that’s probably what’s so scary about it.

“I don’t know if I can do that—” maybe before Jerry, before he knew how much it hurt. How cruel men can be.

Peter smiles at him softly, “You could. Like we said, you’re clever enough to survive this far… and you did it last night.”

“That’s not the same thing.” Stiles snaps, unsure if he’s defending himself or Peter.

“It is. But it’s okay, it doesn’t make you any less of a person. And you wouldn’t be if you did it to get out of here.”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” Stiles is worried he’s going to ask Peter if he’s less of a person because of what Jerry did to him. Since Stiles didn’t trade it for anything, he just endured it.

“Okay.” Peter lays back down, making space for Stiles to get back in, “Just don’t forget about what I said.”

They’re silent for a while, Peter just running his hands through Stiles’ hair.

“If I got out, I’d tell everyone about this place. So someone would come and get you out, too.”

Peter doesn’t make him the same promise back, “Just don’t tell Argent that.”

Stiles muses that that, at least, is probably a good idea.

 

* * *

 

 

Having someone to talk to every day is a revelation. Stiles asks all the questions he’s ever wondered about werewolves, learning about the difference of eye color and just what exactly Peter can hear and smell on him.

“Do I smell like a bird to you?”

Peter is doing pull ups on the bar, and Stiles is watching the way his abs tense on every pull. It’s distracting. “You smell like teenager and arousal.” The man answers with a smirk, letting go and dropping to the ground, “And it’s _very_ distracting.”

“Shut up.” Stiles grumbles, a flash of fear in his stomach that Peter might try and initiate something, but the man just drops to the ground and starts his sit ups instead.

“You asked.”

“What does Chris smell like?”

“Death mostly. He’s the one who _puts them out of their misery_.”

Stiles’ eyes bug out, “What? Who?”

“The wolves they push too far, who react badly.”

“How many of you are there here?”

“About forty that I can sense. I’m the only Alpha.”

“What do they do to you?”

Peter keeps doing his sit ups and doesn’t answer, Stiles apologizes for asking but hopes all the same he'll get a response.

“Tests mostly. New equipment, new poisons. How quickly our limbs grow back.”

Stiles’ eyes quickly scan over Peter’s arms, looking for signs. “Have they…?”

“No, they can’t risk killing me. With no Alpha around the other wolves would become unmanageable.”

“Are they your pack?”

Peter makes a pinched face, pausing mid sit up. “Not really. There’s… something. I can tell when one of them dies.”

“When Chris puts them out of their misery.”

“He’s merciful that way.” Peter smirks a lot at Stiles, but the way he smiles when talking to or about Chris is pure hatred.

“He hates you because you’re the Alpha?”

“He hates me because I’m a Hale.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s complicated. To do with his sister and his family’s fall from grace. She killed a lot of innocent wolves and some humans. It made the Argent name untrustworthy.”

“And keeping people in cages isn’t?”

“They used to be normal hunters, now they mostly deal in research and new equipment.”

“That doesn’t sound like your fault.” Stiles' brain is quickly zipping through all the information, processing it and trying to make sense of what has been said and how it relates to him.

“It’s complicated. And it doesn’t help that they’re all sick fucks.”

He starts on the push ups, Stiles has the urge to run his hand along Peter’s back.

“So you’re saying that the wolves here aren’t innocent?”

Peter shoots him a look, “You think someone could deserve this?”

“No, I didn’t mean that. I just meant… I haven’t done anything. I don’t even know if I really am anything, but even if I was, I haven’t done anything yet. I’m not guilty of anything.”

Peter keeps up his routine, chewing on his words. “They’re not good people. That’s just the facts, to them you’re inhuman and that’s enough. You shouldn’t have to worry about the idea that you’ve done something wrong on top of the rest of this shit.”

Stiles smiles, it’s a bit wobbly, but it’s a good one. Peter is indignant on his behalf, Peter doesn’t think he should be here. He watches Peter for a while longer from their—now shared—bed, he likes watching the way sweat trickles down the groove of Peter’s spine. The way his body fits together, one muscle tensing while another stretches. He has the ridiculous urge to lie underneath Peter, so he can watch the man strain.

“You’re being distracting again.” Peter snaps with no bite. And Stiles’ eyes glance down to the very obvious erection in the man’s trousers.

“Sorry, I’ll stop. I’ll—”

“Okay, let’s finally teach you how to do push ups.”

Unsurprisingly he isn’t very good.

 

* * *

 

 

Peter touches himself again that night. At first he had asked Stiles if he would turn over. Face away from Peter so his ass would be inches away from Peter’s erection. But it had made him nervous, it made him think of being turned over and pushed down on a cold floor. Stiles shook his head, apologizing.

Peter didn’t seem to mind.

“Moan for me again, it’s okay. Tell me what you like, what makes you smell like arousal when watching me.”

Stiles might be trying to slowly separate the idea of sex and violence, but he doubts he’ll ever disambiguate it from embarrassment.

“ _Peter!_ ” He whines, and it was supposed to be an admonishment, but apparently it works because the man just whines back at him. Jerking his cock faster.

“Yes, say it again. Please, you’re so good. Touch yourself again.” He doesn’t mention the pretense this time, “Tell me what you like.”

It’s mortifying being the subject of someone’s pleasure, Stiles feels like Peter would want to string him out and look at all his most private places.

“Okay,” he puts his hands down his trousers and wonders if he’ll get any closer to an erection this time. “Okay, Peter, _Peter._ ” Faking pleasure isn’t too hard really, it’s easier this time. He doesn’t think Peter would throw him out as punishment if he said no. Or if he did a bad job. It’s a trade, giving Peter some solace for warmth.

“I liked… I liked watching your muscles move.” Okay, probably sounding more like a creepy stalker than a sexual partner, but at least he’s not lying. “You look so strong, it makes me feel small. But, like that’s okay, because you wouldn’t use it against me. Like a lifeline in the dark, I wanted to get close to you.”

His eyes are closed, so he can’t really see if this is working. “I kept thinking how glad I was that I’m sharing this space with you. I’ve seen you kill someone, but all I thought was _yes, you’re supposed to be that angry._ Every time I watched your body move it was like watching all this molten anger and violence ready to uncurl when needed. I wanted it, I—”

Peter has stopped moving so much that Stiles suddenly notices. He snaps his eyes open and meets red ones. He’s a bit worried he said something wrong, he has no idea what _dirty talk_ even is. He was just telling Peter the truth. The man could hear lies after all.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No.” Peter whispers back, and then moves forward.

He’s definitely going to kiss Stiles, or at least thinks about kissing Stiles. Their mouths get close, Stiles breathes in the warm breath from Peter’s lips. _Am I supposed to close my eyes?_

Peter sighs, deciding against it. But he kisses Stiles’ forehead, and it feels like a benediction.

“I wish I could—” he lets go of his prick, and rubs his hands up Stiles’ arm. Gripping the material and pulling him closer, “I wish I could make this good for you. That you wanted it.”

Stiles is probably as close to being turned on as he’ll ever be, but his body is still not gracing him with an erection. “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s okay.” He strokes over Stiles’ face, the movement has Peter knock his dick into Stiles’ thigh. It makes the man moan, and Stiles isn’t even scared. It’s okay.

“It’s okay.” He says with a smile back, “I like this. Even if it’s not… even if I can’t, watching you jerk off it probably the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Peter smirks back at him, although there’s still a softness around the eyes. “Yeah? Hotter than my repressed violence?”

Stiles whines again in embarrassment, “You’re not allowed to use the things I said against me.”

“And why not?” Maybe the charged moment has made this easier between them, given Stiles some slack to work with when it comes to taking risks and being playful.

“Well, otherwise I won’t tell you about how much I wanted to lie underneath you when you were doing push ups.”

Peter breaks out into a grin again, returning to jerking his cock.

“Yeah, what would you do under there?”

“I don’t even know. Touch you. Your chest, the way it moves… maybe your dick.” It’s exciting, the chance to explore the idea without the threat of violence. “If your dick was out… maybe I’d lick it every time you dipped down.”

“Fuck, okay, let’s keep talking about that.” He brings his hand to Stiles’ mouth like before, pressing down on the lower lip as he rubs his dick faster. Stiles takes the initiative and swipes his tongue over it, sucking on the tip.

It’s enough apparently.

“Shit, _fuck,_ stay still. Fuck, move your fucking sweater, _fuck fuck fuck._ ”

Stiles has a smug grin on his face, like it’s an achievement getting Peter to this point. Peter punishes him by licking some of the cum off his stomach, which is an experience in itself, but the man doesn’t push it any further. Repeating the previous escapades’ ritual of rubbing the fluid into his skin.

They settle down and Peter half lies on top of him they’re so close. Stiles would never have guessed that the man was clingy, but he guesses that Peter had probably be alone for a long time before this.

“If you ever want anything like that,” Peter says against his head, his words were soft and unobtrusive, “you can ask me for it. We can even do things you’re not comfortable returning.”

Stiles thinks that Peter wants him to ask for them, so he feels less like he’s taking it from Stiles. _Unwilling._

“I’ll ask. If… maybe when… I’ll ask.” He's not putting any bets on it happening. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Please get in touch if you think the tags are wrong/need to be added.  
> 2\. I'm gonna give it a few days between chapters to give you guys a chance to feedback & allow me the chance to fix things and maybe add in some stuff if needed.  
> 3\. Thank you so much for reading! Kudos and comments literally support writers. It's free, like the content we give you. Hopefully that's enough (:
> 
>  
> 
> _For the most part I'm really happy that this fic is just Stiles pov but there's a few moments where I would have loved to try and share whatever was going through Peter's head. The moment when Stiles is talking in bed about how he sees Peter... When Peter goes to kiss him but changes his mind... They're just the kind of moments I think would be so interesting to see from the other side, but keeping in closed is probably the best way to show us how Stiles is feeling about it._


	6. Playing With Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A slightly altered routine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just need to mention again how much I enjoy sharing this fic with you. For the most part I write for myself - as I think that's healthy - but every time I give you guys another segment of this fic, it really amazes me at the different bits you guys pick up, question & analyse. You should all be English majors or something.

Peter was such a central part of Stiles’ life before that in many ways them talking, touching, and teasing one another didn’t feel entirely different. Except that before all of this was playing out in Stiles’ head, and now it is happening in real life.

He still cries a lot, and Peter still doesn’t know how to handle it. But it’s just another part of their restricted routine now. 

Peter isn’t always a very nice person, Stiles is quite sure that if given the opportunity Peter would torture all the guards to death. Especially Chris. Revenge and retribution appear to be some of Peter’s main motivators. How he keeps himself together even in the sheer direness of the situation they’re in. He doesn’t bother to hide that part, and is uninterested in Stiles’ negative reactions to his mania. It’s clearly a part of him that he wears like armor. 

Chris and Peter’s relationship gets more tense, however. Sometimes because Peter says something too cutting, other times because Chris throws his weight around too much. Stiles doesn’t know if he feels like an umpire in an underground boxing match, or if he’s a scrap of meat that two hungry dogs are fighting over.

Sometimes it’s just down to pure comedic timing, really. 

There are days when Peter is in a good mood, and Stiles isn’t feeling like the walls are going to collapse in on him. Peter is trying to get Stiles to do push ups. He says it's because it’ll be useful for Stiles to have more core strength in the long run. 

“You just like doing them because of what I said about them.” Stiles teases, invigorated by the freedom to talk about intimacy and attraction without the threat of fear.

“Well I am very strong.” 

Somehow it leads to Stiles trying to push him over, and then failing. And then Peter pushing Stiles over, so Stiles tries to scramble back up. His laughter is probably loud, but he’s not really thinking about it. One of those just ‘in the moment’ delights that are rarer than gold dust in places like this. 

In the end he perches on top of Peter’s back as Peter tries to buck him off, Stiles’ hands scrabbling to grip on to nothing but the miles of sweat slick skin. Like a manly bucking bronco. Peter probably isn’t trying as hard as he could, because that would mean Stiles was splattered across the wall if it did. But it’s fun, and amazing that Peter can keep doing—now one handed—push ups while Stiles is sitting on his back.

Chris walks in and Stiles’ laughter dies in his throat. 

The man looks furious, and still Stiles can’t really work out why. It probably isn’t jealousy over Stiles, it’s probably anger that Peter is having a moment of joy. If there’s one thing he can count on, is that the hatred between them is mutual. 

Peter dips low on the ground so Stiles can slip off. He doesn’t stop his routine however, swapping to sit ups instead. Stiles just stands awkwardly next to him.

“Stilinski, come here.” He feels like a rag doll pulled at the seams. He doesn’t want to upset Chris, he’s the one who controls the decisions in his life. Where he gets to sleep, who he shares his space with, what he gets to eat. 

Peter gets up and for one irrational second he thinks that the man is going to stop him, stop Chris taking him away. Peter doesn’t, he just winks at Stiles and walks over to the wall. 

Chris is silent all the way to the shower block, Stiles doesn’t really know if he’s supposed to say something. Maybe he should apologize. He’s not sorry, but he doesn’t want to anger Chris.

He thinks some more on what Peter says about fucking Chris… _About Chris fucking him_.

It makes undressing in front of him harder than normal, up until now going to the shower block was a respite. A moment of solitude from Jerry, and then the red eyed werewolf he didn't understand. He watches from the corner of his eye as Chris picks up his clothes and shoves them in the giant industrial washing machine. Stiles has until the thing is done to enjoy the hot water. He glances around, Chris isn’t watching him. It strikes Stiles as strange, the other guards watch him. Again, it never really felt sexual. They were watching him so he didn’t try anything, maybe it meant something more that Chris wasn’t watching him.

Stiles tries to just concentrate on the hot water that sinks into his skin. He wishes it was hotter, but it’s warm all the same. The machine powers down its wash, and the hum of the dryer starts. Stiles looks around and Chris was staring at him, but looks away.

A stab of nerves goes through him.

Stiles isn’t sure he can do this. He just desperately doesn’t want to be moved away from Peter. Trying to find a way out of this hell hole isn’t on his list of priorities, he is still just trying to survive. 

The dryer stops. 

Chris turns off the water and holds out a towel. Stiles inches closer, not meeting Chris’ eyes. Normally he tries to get as much water as possible off him to try and retain some heat later, but for now he just scrubs off the damp before following Chris into the locker room so he can pull on his clothes. He puts on the pants and holds out the now sodden bandage for Chris to rebind. He’s only had a shower a few days ago, it didn’t really need the attention, but it’s becoming clear that Chris does this whole thing as a strange power play.

“Please don’t take me away from him.” Stiles says. 

Chris frowns, drying the metal splints on a towel before putting them back against Stiles’ skin. The bruises have almost faded now, but there’s still an ugly green yellow color about them. Hiding the still broken bone. He read somewhere once that bones can take up to three months to heal. Did that include wrists?

“You shouldn’t trust him. I warned you.”

Stiles nods, he just wants to be agreeable. “He doesn’t hurt me. Please don’t put me with someone who might.”

It makes Chris frown even more. It hits him how ridiculous the situation is. That this man has so much say in his safety, and Stiles has to tiptoe around his ego and intentions to stay safe. Without Jerry as a monster in the closet, Chris’ pettiness when it comes to his safety feels more evident. 

“Are you going to move me? Is there anything I can do to convince you not to?” It’s the closest Stiles could get to propositioning him. 

Chris looks at him, a little surprised. Conflicted. Stiles wants him to say what he’s thinking. He’s been spoiled with Peter who appears to use truth like a weapon, applying what he knows openly to manipulate. Chris is like a closed box.  _ Do you want to fuck me Mr Argent? _

“I’m not going to move you. You still shouldn’t trust him though.”

_ He told me to try fucking you, maybe if you knew you’d say something else. _

Chris takes him back. It’s confusing, it’s like Chris wants him away from Peter and alone, but as soon as he has him, he wants to put him back again.

Stiles’ brain feels like it’s waking up, analysing all the points of weakness of those around him. Who they are, what they want. How he fits into the motivations, what he can do to stay out of the line of fire.

When he’s alone with Peter again he lies down on their shared bed.

“You did it on purpose.”

“Did what?” Peter asks him with a smile.

“You know what, you flirted with me in front of him. To rile him.”

“Have I mentioned how clever you were?”

“Could you hear him coming?”

“Yes.” Honesty, Peter uses the truth like a scalpel. It’s just as sharp as Chris’ stormy silence.

“And you didn’t think to stop?”

“I thought that watching me play with what Chris wants would make it easier for you.”

Stiles scowls at him, “That’s not the part that’s hard.”

Peter gives him a sympathetic look and sits next to him, stretching out his own legs, and then manhandling Stiles’ limbs until they’re laid out in front of him. They start their exercises. Peter normally likes to be quiet during these times, but Stiles feels pushy and smarting from the smack of Peter’s manipulations.

“You’re stronger because you’re an Alpha, does that mean you can hear further?”

“Pretty much.”

“What other powers do you have?”

“The same as a regular wolf, but stronger. I can turn others by biting or even scratching them.”

Stiles looks at him, a bit shocked. “You could turn me if you scratch me?”

“If you’re human, yes.” 

He feels a bit cold in his stomach, how many times had Peter touched him? One claw away from taking his humanity. “Is that why Chris shot the guard you mauled but didn’t kill?”

Peter snorts, “I’m surprised he did that in front of you. Yes, probably. Hunters would rather die than be turned, although I’ve seen a few who didn’t want to. Their friends are quick to decide for them, though.”

“Chris didn’t ask the man.”

“Chris wouldn’t.”

“Are you less affected by the moon then?” They had definitely had a full moon by now, Stiles hadn’t noticed anything different about Peter however. 

“It’s more about control, I don’t have to rely on the stability of an Alpha.”

Stiles points his toes. “Jerry went crazy at the end. He kept saying that  _ they  _ would come. Do you know what that means?”

Peter thinks about it, still doing his stretches, like the conversation is an afterthought, “It’s probably my fault. I’d been rejecting him since I heard your screaming.”

Stiles is shocked, “You did it for me?”

Peter shrugs, “I didn’t know you. I just knew that he sickened me.” 

“I was worried it was me that was making him crazy.”

“Why?” Stiles is vulnerable to people taking an interest in him, asking questions. Wanting to know his thoughts and feelings, and not just what his mouth feels like.

“He wouldn’t be the first person who went crazy around me.”

“Sometimes things are just a coincidence. This one was not on your head at least.”

Stiles starts crying. It’s ridiculous, all of this is so fucked. “I’m sorry, I’ll stop. I don’t know what is wrong with me…. I haven’t cried over my mother in years.”

Peter makes a sympathetic noise. He’s shit at comfort. Stiles doesn’t really begrudge him. After a few minutes of silence Peter asks. “What happened to your mother?”

“She just went crazy one day. The doctors thought it was some kind of stroke. She just forgot everything. Walked out the house one day, we didn’t find her until days later.”

“She changed?”

“She didn’t remember any of us. I keep remembering her looking at me like, ‘who are you?’”

“Did she get better?”

Stiles nods, “For a while. But then she forgot everything again…. She kept trying to kill herself.”

“Shit.” Peter breathes out. 

Stiles nods, he starts up his toe pointing again. He doesn't know how his mother finally did it, one day she was just gone.

“I’m sorry, let’s talk about something else. Anything else. What do you think about when you do this?”

Peter takes the opportunity to change topics readily. “I remember everything. Every detail of this place I’ve seen. All the faces I’ve met. Their weaknesses, who makes mistakes.”

“So you can escape?”

“So I can exploit them, and then punish them. But yes, to escape.”

Stiles never knows what to say when Peter says something like that, he doesn’t disagree. “How much of the facility have you seen?”

Peter had seen a lot more of the facility than Stiles. He doesn’t go into too much detail about the training room they take him, only that he knows there’s a lot of it he hasn’t seen. They take him to a different shower block as well. One with a lot cages. Peter sees a lot more of the other inhabitants— _ prisoners _ —as well. It strikes Stiles suddenly how little he does here.

“It’s like they don’t have a reason for me being here. I’m just… someone for Chris to drag out and watch shower now and again” 

Peter snorts, it’s not a particularly happy noise. He doesn’t have any answers for Stiles, though. Stiles tells him everything he’s seen so far to add to the mental blue print. His shower block, the walk there, his and Jerry’s old cell. What he can remember when he first got here.

“Where were you before here?”

“At home, in California.”

“No between that and being here. You said you were taken in June, it’s almost November now. And you started screaming in August. Where were you before that?”

The question makes Stiles scared, he can’t really remember. 

“I… I don’t know. I was in some kind of dark room…. They tattooed me, but, I don’t remember much of it. I thought it was only for a few days.”

Peter frowns, whether in sympathy or at the lack of detail, Stiles doesn’t know. “You’ve blacked it out.”

“I’ve found it really hard to track time in general since I’ve been here. Chris told me I’d been here months and I had no idea.”

Peter hums, thinking about. “I don’t have experience with this kind of thing, but you were probably dissociating. Trying to block out what was happening, the whole experience was a shock.”

“It’s easier now. I remember every day with you.”

Peter smiles at him, more teeth than lip, “Let’s hope you can forget about them when you get out.”

“ _ When _ .” Stiles says with a smile, trying to tease Peter for his optimism.

“Well, you need something to motivate you into fucking Chris. His ugly face isn’t going to help.”

The humour is dark, horrible really, considering. But Stiles laughs all the same.

 

* * *

 

 

That night as they’re almost asleep Stiles asks him, tucked into the enclave between Peter’s body and the mattress behind him.

“If you think I’ll forget about you if we get out—”

“—when” Peter cuts in, eyes closed and voice rough from sleep.

“Okay, when. Does that mean you don’t think we’ll see each other?” It’s been rattling around Stiles’ head since they spoke about it earlier.

Peter hums, and starts petting Stiles’ hair. “I think worrying about that isn’t necessary.”

“It’s just that… I see you every day. You’re my whole world. Like, I piss in front of you. I know what you sound like when you piss.”

“You’re thinking too much about piss.” Peter still hasn’t opened his eyes.

“I can’t help it. You’re all I think about all the time. I can’t imagine a world now where you’re not there. Doing your push ups, eating bread, pissing, lying next to me…”

Peter hums again, stroking his hair. “Your ability to be vulnerable it terrifying. I’d compliment you on how good you are at manipulating people, if it didn’t make you so easy to manipulate in turn.”

Stiles leans into him, rubs his cheek again Peter’s chest. Trying to express some kind of  _ need  _ to know that Peter isn’t just going to vanish on him. He doesn’t say anything.

Peter goes on, “Maybe we will see each other. Maybe you’ll die before we get out of here. Maybe Chris will take you away to some nice house and keep you locked up there instead.” Peter’s words are as sharp as his tone is soft. “Maybe I’ll get out and do something incredibly stupid and come back for you.”

It’s not real, none of what they have is real. An intimacy of convenience, of systematic exposure instead of a finite relationship. But it meant something to Stiles anyway, it meant something more than if he were to trade his body for a way out with Chris. And that’s important.

“Remember when you told me to ask?” He whispers.

Peter finally opens his eyes, slowly but focused. “Yes.”

“Will you kiss me?”

“Is that what you want? You’ve already traded away enough of your body, I don’t need that too.” It’s a horrible thing to say, but Stiles treasures it anyway.

“No, it’s… I haven’t ever done it before. And I want it. And wanting something is so rare for me now, but I want you to.” 

Peter gives it to him, without a second hesitation. It’s firm, consuming, Peter’s mouth and tongue experienced enough for the both of them. But soft enough that Stiles can learn the rhythm of bodies and mouths. 

Stiles has no idea what his first kiss would have been like if none of this had happened, maybe it would have been some girl at a party. Maybe he would have finally downloaded a dating app on his phone and met someone in Beacon Hills. For all he knows, maybe he would have kissed a guy, even though the idea had barely entered his head before now. It would undoubtedly have been nothing like kissing Peter, but he’s glad for it all the same. 

There’s a few moments when Peter is licking his tongue into Stiles’ mouth, the man’s erection very obvious against his thigh, that Stiles can feel some little pitters of attraction in himself. It must egg Peter on. “I’m sorry,” he whispers against Stiles’ lips, getting out his cock and jerking it. He’s close, the man’s dick bumping into Stiles, and as much as he’s jerking he’s rutting himself against Stiles’ stomach. But Stiles doesn’t really mind, it’s fine. He moans for effect into Peter’s mouth, sucks on his tongue experimentally. He wants Peter to enjoy him, to want him there, to worry that Stiles might not come back one day as much as Stiles worries for him. 

“Please, just—” Peter puts Stiles’ hand over the head of his cock. Not gripping it too hard, just there as the man jerks it himself. Stiles doesn’t really know what to do, but after a second he runs his fingers over the slit. He cups it with his hand, jostled every second by Peter’s ever speeding jerks, and then Stiles squeezes the tip akin to what he had enjoyed once upon a time when jerking off at home, hoping that maybe Peter would too.

“Fuck!” The reward is splatters of release over his hand, Peter holding it there as he cums more and more into the palm. 

Stiles doesn’t really know what to do with it afterwards, panting slightly from the shock of it, but finds that he doesn’t mind the sight of Peter licking it off his hand whatsoever. The whole day has been a roller coaster. He wants to go home and see his dad. But Peter is there, petting him. Grateful for Stiles' sacrifices. It'll have to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Please get in touch if you think the tags are wrong/need to be added.  
> 2\. I'm gonna give it four days between chapters to give you guys a chance to feedback & allow me the chance to fix things and maybe add in some stuff if needed.  
> 3\. Thank you so much for reading! Kudos and comments literally support writers. It's free, like the content we give you. Hopefully that's enough (:
> 
>  
> 
> _Just thought I'd mention that my favourite moment in the whole fic happens in this chapter. Feel free to guess. (Or even tell me your favourite moment thus far)._


	7. At What Price

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things can't stay the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another update. Thank you as always for your support. You're all amazing, I hope you enjoy this segment.

 

They’re not having sex in the traditional sense, Stiles isn’t there yet. Might not ever be. It’s not why he’s doing it, he mostly just wants to be close to Peter. To enact some control, to be able to choose when they get intimate. Peter doesn’t seem to mind, often grateful for Stiles’ pretense that this is a mutual thing. He wonders why Peter is so adverse to just taking what he wants, and then has to remember that in the real world, it’s not normal to strip away other people’s decisions. Every day he has less reasons to be scared of Peter, solidifying that the man isn’t harbouring a wish to hurt him. That Peter’s pleasure in him seems to come from soft sighs and eager yes’s. It’s so peculiar given Peter’s nature in everything else, but Stiles hoards it all the same. Like a secret just for him. 

The matter of Chris looms however. He talks about it with Peter sometimes. It’s hard to work the man out. After enough prying conversations it’s clear that Peter doesn’t like the idea of letting Chris have him, and the suggestion that Peter might be possessive glows warmly under his skin. But all the same he knows that Peter thinks it’s a good idea, the man is ruthless that way. 

He’d hurt himself to get what needs to happen done. Never mind hurting others. Stiles has to remind himself of Peter’s pledge:  _ he wouldn’t pick you over getting out of here _ .

Sometimes Stiles wonders if that’s what he’s doing, trying to burrow under Peter’s skin. Make it harder for him to abandon Stiles. Peter had told him he was good at manipulation, maybe that’s what he meant.

He tries some of these skills on Chris sometimes. It would be wrong to call it flirting, more like strategic bonding. Saying his name whenever he can, smiling at kindness. Stiles has no idea if it’s working. He wishes he could time how long Chris keeps him in the shower block, as if every minute is a sign of increased interest.

One day he’s sitting topless while Chris binds his arm again. It’s the second shower in a week he’s had, which maybe means something. He had tried showing off while showering earlier, bending down to wash his feet, blushing under the stream of water as he passes his hand over his cleft and rearranges his junk. Enough that it’s just usual washing, but a bit slower. 

His body and its ability to be penetrated had felt like a weakness until now. Trying to turn it on its head isn’t easy, but possibly worth it. Stiles tries to hold some of Peter’s determination in his chest to power through.

If any of it had worked, it’s hard to tell. Chris is the same as always. Which means he’s attentive, controlled and softer than any of the other guards. Unreadable.

Stiles looks at him openly, flicking over his face. His arms that lead to hands that touch him. He wonders what kind of cock Chris would have. Would it hurt? Would that matter? Should he moan breathily like he does for Peter. Would that help him seal the deal?

“Chris…” Stiles begins.

Chris grunts in response, Stiles has already worn the man down on the name thing.  _ Maybe I should just start sucking on his fingers, Peter likes that. But maybe Peter is different from other men.  _

Nervously he twitches his legs. Is Chris standing closer than normal?

“Do you want to fuck me?”

“Jesus Christ!” You would have thought that Stiles had just thrown acid in his face Chris steps back so far. It looks like a strong no, but Stiles has already broken the taboo, there’s no point in stopping.

“You can, if you like. I’d let you do it here, or—” he trails off, Chris looks like he’s going to hit him. “I’m sorry.”

He looks so angry, “I would never stoop that low.”

Stiles shrugs. It’s kinda’ a punch in the gut, how  _ low _ Stiles is. Some kind of animal to him. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Who put this idea in your head? Tell me!”

It’s the wrong line of conversation, “I don’t know. You knew Jerry did it.”

Chris looks distressed and a bit sick. This is definitely the opposite of what Stiles’ planned.

“I stopped that. Something you should be grateful for, not—”

“I am grateful! That’s why I want you to.” It’s a lie, he wants him to because Peter said it might help him.

“Stiles,” it’s one of the first times Chris has ever said his name. He didn’t even know that Chris remembered it from the time Stiles had shouted it at him. Something about it breaks Stiles open a little bit, all his calculated intentions falling apart into vulnerability.  “It doesn’t work like that.”

“Why not? This is… this is what this place has made of me.” 

Somehow that makes Chris look worse, maybe it is working. The guilt, the reminder that Chris has broken someone. 

“You don’t have to do that to survive.”

Stiles shrugs, “I thought maybe that’s why I was here. I’m not pheonix, I’m just some kid that could entertain wolves while you lock them up.”

“I told you—”

“You’re wrong. Even Peter couldn’t smell—” it was a mistake to bring up Peter, he could see it on Chris’ face. Like everything was falling into place.

“Chris, I’m sorry. I’m  _ sorry. _ ” He babbles, Chris doesn’t even wait for him to pull on his sweater. Just pushes it at him and drags him back to the cell. The second guard does the part of ordering Peter against the wall, but once he’s done Chris tells him to get out of there.

Stiles awkwardly pulls on his sweater, unable to answer Peter’s quizzical look, as Chris points his gun at Peter.

“ _ Hale _ , I’m ordering you to bite Stiles.” 

Stiles feels a stab of fear in his gut, stepping back, away from both of them.

Peter also freezes, going from his normal smug grin to straight anger. 

Stiles holds his breath, his gaze frozen on Peter. On what he might do.

“No.” Peter answers.

“That wasn’t a request, do it now or this will become very fucking difficult for you.”

Peter still isn’t moving, it’s the only hope Stiles has. He wants to trust Peter, relax into the safety that the man won’t hurt him.

“No... he might be human, if I turn him you’ll have a reason to keep him here.”

Stiles has never seen Chris’ face so red with anger. But at that moment he can only focus on the relief from what Peter says. Peter, _ he can trust Peter _ . It’s going to be okay. 

Chris points the gun at Stiles instead.

“I’ll prove he’s not one way or another, for all of us right now. So like I said:  _ bite him _ .”

Peter closes his eyes and tips his head back, Stiles doesn’t know what to do. He’s never been shot at by the tranquilizers. Doesn’t know what Chris’ proof might mean. He just has to keep hoping Peter resists. He’ll just have to handle being shot, he’ll be fine. It might hurt a bit, but mostly he’ll just go to sleep, right? When it happened to Peter, he just appeared stoned. They don’t have any proof he’s not human. He’ll be fine. He’ll be fine. 

Peter starts to walk over to him.

“No!” Stiles shouts, backing up until he’s against the wall. “No! Don’t,  _ please _ don’t!”

It’s little solace that Peter looks visibly pained at Stiles’ pleading.

“Please Peter, please. I’m human, don’t do this to me. Please, I’m human, I’m human! No!”

Like putty Peter pulls his arm away from his body, it’s the broken one. He has even less control pulling it back. He’s crying, begging, looking over at Chris like maybe he can convince the man at the last minute to call it off. But Chris still has that grim look of determination on his face.

“Shh,” Peter murmurs at him, “it’ll be over quickly, you’ll be okay.”

“But I’m human, I’m human. I’m just a kid. I’m just—” he screams when Peter bites him. It’s been so long since he last screamed, but it comes straight back to him. It hurts, Peter’s dropped wolf teeth piercing the skin and entering already broken flesh. But mostly he screams because it’s gone, his last vestiges of being human. Gone.  _ He was going to be fine.  _

Peter licks over the bleeding wound once it’s done. 

Stiles is panting looking at the bite. He doesn’t know what is supposed to happen. What any of it means.

Nothing happens for a steady string of minutes. The room is completely silent, like all three agents in the room are just waiting for the next scene to take place. Stiles is shaking, but all he can do is stare. And then Peter pulls him into an embrace. “I’m sorry.”

“What does it mean?” Did he lose something? Did it work? Is he human?

“It means you’re not changing.”

Stiles feels like the floor falls out beneath him.

 

* * *

 

 

He’s been crying for hours.

Peter has comforted him, given up, and come back to comfort him already. All of it seems inconsequential however.

Finally he pins Stiles down on the bed, kneeling over him. One hand is holding down his unbroken ( _ unbitten _ ) wrist, the other holds his jaw to face him.

“You need to stop this now.” Stiles isn’t even tracking Peter’s emotions, normally he’s always trying to plot whether the man is angry, playful, exhausted, spiteful. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t human. It didn’t matter.

“I can’t, you don’t understand—”

“No, I don’t. But you need to stop with the misery. It’s time to get angry.”

Stiles tries to shake his head. He wants to die. It was like his safety net, his fantasy for when things got too hard. That they’d work out that he was just a human. That he wasn’t supposed to be here. That it was all a mistake. He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to handle the inevitability that he’s stuck here.

“Stiles,  _ Stiles _ , you need to listen to me. There’s only one way you’re getting out of here. And that’s if you hate them. If you swallow up every little mistake they make, and use it against them. And you’ve got to get  _ angry  _ to do that.”

Stiles’ chest is still heaving from the misery, but he’s listening. He’s desperate. To cling on to something, for a life line in the fucking sinking ship that is his psyche. He nods. Doesn’t really stop crying, but nods. He’s willing, he’ll try. 

Peter kisses him. It’s nothing like the other kisses, this one is soft and deep. Tender. All the comfort he failed to give before, more easily expressed with bodies. And Stiles takes it all down to his core. Lets it sink into the ever widening cracks inside him.  _ Help me, keep me, want me. _ He kisses back with all that he has.

They don’t have sex, Peter just keeps them close together. Nuzzling him, lapping up his tears. Growling and scenting. No words for hours, until Stiles is finally out of tears. And until they’re just close, and the day’s light has given out to evening. He doesn’t want to move, even though there is nowhere for them to go but this stupid cage, he doesn’t want to be anywhere other than hidden under the broad bulk of Peter’s body.

“He told me what I am. I didn’t tell you in case you would some how tell me it was true.” Stiles finally whispers out.

“What is it?”

“He said I’m a phoenix.”

Peter flinches slightly. Maybe if they weren’t so close Stiles’ wouldn’t have noticed. Maybe if Stiles hadn’t spent so much time inches from Peter’s body learning how to read him he wouldn’t have seen the reaction. “Oh.”

“What is it?” Stiles asks, fear  _ always fear  _ lapping at him. How can this be worse? How can anything possibly get  _ worse _ ?

“I know why you’re here now.”

“What is it?”

“You’re not here because you’re guilty, you’re here because you’re a weapon.”

 

* * *

 

 

This wouldn’t be the first time the Argents used a phoenix, and it wouldn’t be the first time they’ve caught one. Stiles finally learns about how the Hale pack died that night, about a phoenix the Argents sent into their home and set alight and burned everyone alive. Peter tells him about the smell of burning flesh that seeped into the walls even before any of the occupants started alight. Tries to explain the horrors that he saw that night. “I shouldn’t be telling you this now.” 

“No please, I need to. I need to know.”

It was all so awful. A different kind of fear than what he’d experienced thus far. Not a ‘what if’ but a ‘when.’ But Stiles needs to know, this can’t be a mystery to him. He’s been in the dark for so long, he needs to know the reality he’s living in. Denial has failed him. The truth is his only option left.

“I looked right at her before I passed out, she’d been blinded. It was horrible, but behind where the eyes should have been I thought I saw fire.”

“Do you think they’ll do it to me? I don’t want to lose my eyes.” His fingers are gripping onto Peter’s arm like this is his only lifeline.

“She was clearly confused. That’s what made it so sad, she was burning up, I think I saw her wings—but it might have just been more fire—but they’d locked her in the house with us and doused her with kerosene. I doubt she’d even burnt up before.” Peter’s low voice is always so loud in their silent cell, he could be whispering and Stiles would feel like every word was a scream.

“Did she die?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did it hurt her?”

“Definitely.”

“It doesn’t make any sense, why would we have these abilities if they hurt so much.”

Peter didn’t say anything straight away, “It hurts me when I change. A lot when I was younger, but you learn the pain. It makes you strong. When you can hurt yourself more than anyone else can.”

“I’ve been in pain so many times since I’ve been here. I don’t want it again.”

Peter hums, licks over the bite. It doesn’t hurt so much anymore. “Maybe it’s because they burnt her. Maybe if she was doing it herself then it wouldn’t have hurt.”

Stiles nods, hopeful that what Peter is saying is true. Leaning into him: physically, emotionally, mentally.

“They’re monsters. They put us in cages to hide the fact that they’re pigs.” Stiles says finally.

Peter growls in agreement, keeps licking him. Over his eyes, in his ear, across his mouth. Stiles feels healed by the attention. Like they were committing an oath, sealed by the blood on Stiles’ wrist. 

“Can I bite you?” Stiles asks. 

Peter pauses, twists his mouth unhappily before he slowly tips his head aside: baring his neck. 

Stiles attacks it with his mouth. It’s the second time he wishes he had fangs, he wishes he could make Peter bleed like Peter did him.

The man growls in response, anger or pleasure Stiles is unsure. He licks over the bite mark, barely denting the skin, and sinks his teeth in again. Lower, closer to the junction of Peter’s shoulder. Just above the heavy collar. Peter definitely growls in pleasure this time however, grinding his thickening cock against Stiles.

“If they kill me, I want you to remember me.” Stiles rasps out against Peter’s skin. He sucks on it, hoping to leave a purple mark that would undoubtedly be gone by morning anyway. 

“If they kill you, I’ll kill them for you. I’ll make sure every last one of them knows the fear you’ve known by their hands. They’ll know that they made a mistake in taking you.” 

Stiles moans at the thought, slipping down the tunnel of Peter’s madness. Of his neverending need for revenge. He slips his legs open so Peter is grinding against his cock. His body still doesn’t care, but he wants it all the same. Sex doesn’t mean pleasure to him, he lost that, that’s just a fact. But it can mean power, and leverage, and the weakness of someone else wanting him. The words in his head sound like Peter’s, but that might be because the man is littering him with praise as he grinds against him. Kissing him and devouring every fictitious moan Stiles offers him.

Peter pulls down Stiles’ pants when he’s close. He looks at Stiles’ soft cock with interest, clearly unsurprised at the lack of reaction. Peter pushes the warm tip of his cock up behind Stiles’ balls, pushing them apart and closer to Stiles’ body. It makes him gasps, the memory of pleasure. His cock twitches, plumping out without hardening. It’s enough for Peter, who thrusts against him. Hot cum coating his sac, splattering up his cock, before dripping back down to his cleft.

Stiles is panting, mostly from the novelty. From the learnt response to whine and moan when someone else is seeking pleasure even when his is not in it. 

Peter is no less diligent in marking him now that his brand is over Stiles’ genitals. It’s stickier here, less comfortable, but it feels like a balm of protection.  _ ‘Turn back, here be wolves.’  _

Peter puts them both back away and returns to kissing him. It’s the only thing that Stiles has asked for, and Peter gives it freely. Deeply, calming, and every shade in between. Until the only thing in the world is Peter to him.

Finally they break apart, after what feels like centuries later, they break apart.

“She died because they decided she would.” Peter’s words are rougher now, more raw. It’s the continuation of a conversation that ended hours before. Stiles just looks at him, not sure what to say in return.“That’s how you will die if you let them.”

“You’re manipulating me.” Stiles says openly, unphased now by things like truth. Peter taught him long ago that subterfuge is often the biggest hurdle to getting what you want.

“I want you to kill them.”

“You want me to want them dead. To be angry.” Stiles says back, plainly, but his gaze tracking Peter’s reactions.

“Yes. But I want you to kill them.”

Stiles’ eyes flicker back and forth over Peter’s. He wonders if he can see flames in there. He wonders if Peter were to pluck out his eyes, he’d find an answering fire in his own. They’re probably going to burn him alive, and Peter wants to hurt them for it.

“How?” 

Peter smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Please get in touch if you think the tags are wrong/need to be added.  
> 2\. I'm gonna give it four days between chapters to give you guys a chance to feedback & allow me the chance to fix things and maybe add in some stuff if needed.  
> 3\. Thank you so much for reading! Kudos and comments literally support writers. It's free, like the content we give you. Hopefully that's enough (:
> 
> _It's always at this point when I'm proofing my work that I want to go back to the beginning and be like 'huh, wow... look at how everyone's relationships have changed'. I worked pretty hard to make sure that the evolution was always believable, slowing everything right down. So hopefully everyone's motivations are coming across as believable to you._
> 
> _p.s. my favourite bit from the last chapter was when Peter whispered "I'm sorry" against Stiles' lips. ___


	8. New Day New Dawn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The funniest thing about this chapter is that when I originally thought about writing this fic, this was supposed to be what happens like straight away. Everything between now and the beginning is stuff that just came out of me in the writing process. I'm glad it worked out this way to say the least.

Stiles doesn’t want to do it.

He wants what Peter wants, but he doesn’t want to do  _ it.  _

It was like at some point he’d been split into two. There are parts of him that understood that the only way out was through. “When you’re at the end of the world, turn left,” his Polish Jewish grandmother had said in her condolence card to Stiles. It’d been written in Yiddish, and he hadn’t translated it until he was fifteen. By then the pain and loss of his mother had lessened, and his grandmother was long dead herself. He’d turned left.

But fear of pain is a powerful thing. Stiles had been so desperate to carve out a corner free of pain that now he had it he was scared to lose it. He wanted to keep things as they are, not rock the boat. Protect himself. Protect both of them. 

It made Peter angry.

“Do I need to hit you?” Peter shouts at him, pacing up and down the cell.. “Because I will if that’s what you need. To let go of this fucking fairy tale that everything is fine how it is.” Stiles’ heart races under his skin as he considers what the world would be like if all of Peter’s fury and violence was pointed at him. It feels like they’ve been having this argument forever. For the first time in weeks ( _ months _ ) Stiles wishes his mattress was in the corner, so he could curl up and ignore Peter’s frustrations.

He regrets the thought when Peter rejects him from the bed that night. 

“Peter please, I’m just not ready.” Stiles whispers, shivering in the cold. He’s not used to the cold nights without another body anymore. They’ve made it to January, at some point Christmas and New Years snuck past him, days that once meant so much in a world where you have freedom to choose what you do with yourself. He didn’t care now, he just wants to get back to Peter’s warmth.

Peter doesn’t answer him, but growls cruelly when Stiles tries to step closer to return to their bed. 

The man is an impenetrable wall of need to  _ go on _ . To fight. To do what has to be done. Stiles feels his own will splintering under that force. A fact that Peter obviously knows. No more soft manipulation, they’re going to war.  _ I won’t pick you over getting out of here. _

Peter wasn’t the only one who knows how to manipulate. 

Stiles pulls off his sweater, keeping just Peter’s thin henley on his skin. It makes him colder, but it’s worth it for the attention. He has it.  _ Men are so weak sometimes _ , Stiles muses. Too eager to take what they can  _ now.  _ Stiles had never before realized the power of being breakable.

He slips off his pants. It’s the most naked he’s even been in front of Peter, which is almost amusing. His legs are skinny now, his whole body was never fat but a slim diet and stress has made him nimble. Sometimes Stiles wonders if he could just slip through the bars of the cage. 

Peter is watching him, sat up not saying anything. His eyes drinking in what Stiles looks like all the same. Stiles thinks it is working.

“Do you want me to turn around?” Stiles asks quietly. Inviting without teasing. Opening himself.

There’s a low growl in Peter’s chest, but he nods in response. Stiles rewards him by turning.

The shirt comes to just above his thighs, the cold air kissing the bottom curves of his ass. Delicately he puts his hands on the backs of his thighs and slides his hands up, coasting over the round swell of his ass and revealing it. The cold slithers up him, bringing gooseflesh to his skin, but the warmth of shyness flushes him all the same. 

Stiles has no idea how to be sexy. He missed that step in experiencing intimacy with another person. He knows how to be treated like an object that can have pleasure taken from him, so in turn he objectifies himself. Keeping one hand at the swell of his back to hold up the material he coasts the other back down over the curve. His fingers are cold, it makes him shiver, on the way back up he slides closer to the cleft. Pulling his cheeks open slightly. 

Peter growls, and he hears the noise of masculine sex being stroked from behind him. 

Stiles lets go and turns back around, walking delicately back onto the pallet.

“You’re manipulating me.” Peter says, eyes red. His mouth is twisted in an almost impressed smirk. Stiles smiles back, laughing at his success and Peter pulls him down.

He’s never straddled someone before. 

Peter is warm between his thighs, it’s a thrill. The feeling of his legs being forced open is novel, scary in a way that memories lick at the back of his mind, but he has a task at hand. To keep himself in Peter’s bed.

He rocks against the hard cock trapped underneath him experimentally. It makes Peter whine. He does it again, putting his hands on Peter’s chest for leverage, and drags his body along the silken flesh of Peter’s erection. It gets the response he wants. Peter grabs his hips and encourages the motions, increasing the pace. Pulling Stiles down harder. Stiles’ own cock is being stimulated and it’s a curious experience. Sometimes nice, sometimes too hard, always like a whisper of a past self lost. 

“I wish I could fuck you,” Peter tells him. 

Stiles moans in response, like it’s a nice idea. Like it’s something he could want. Like he isn’t lying.

“You’d feel so good sliding down my cock.” Peter tells him, brazenly. It’s a little bit much, and he knows Peter is pushing him. Punishing him for playing with fire, for using sex to get what he wants.  _ It’s so funny that everyone around here is allowed to be sociopaths, and Stiles gets told off just for trying to get someone off _ . But he guesses that’s what it’s like when you don’t have any of the power in a relationship, you learn to bend: yourself and the rules.

Stiles whines, “ _ Peter, _ ” he humps his hips like it’s his own cock being jerked. “Peter, Peter, please.” Throwing himself into the idea that they’re making love, that this is normal, that he’s infatuated. 

“Fuck!  _ Fuck, _ fine. Okay, okay sweetheart. Keep going, keep going for me.” Peter gives in, and it’s better than cumming in Stiles’ mind. It’s winning, it’s enacting influence on your situation. 

Peter touches his face and Stiles butts his head into Peter’s palm, nosing it and whispering moans into the dry skin, before sucking on the fingers. 

Peter moves Stiles back enough that he can get his hands around his own prick again, jerking it. He takes Stiles’ hand and places it on his cock too, holding it tight so he can jerk off with it. And Stiles tries to memorise the way his fingers catch over the head every time, how Peter squeezes each time his erection is fed through the fingers. He moans more, sucking on the fingers in his mouth, and as Peter starts to cum he bites them like he’s trying to hold back his own release. 

Stiles is used to the feel of Peter’s cum on him now. Growth in desensitisation. He has lost the instant fear response that means that someone has just used him. If he was going to play astute he’d say he’s just used Peter. Used his desires against him. He smiles at Peter, smug and playful in triumph. There’s little point hiding it. 

“Clever clever.” Peter muses with a smile, finally letting Stiles’ hands go. Rubbing his own release up Stiles’ thighs. 

“It’s nice to be noticed.” Stiles answers, laying flat on Peter’s belly so he can kiss him. Peter indulges. Gripping Stiles’ thighs when his sensitive erection is squashed between them.

Stiles has a semi. It’s as far as he tends to get, but it’s enjoyable. He ponders if Peter enjoyed smelling his arousal. When Peter bucks his hips gently against him he assumes that’s the case.

“I’ve created monster.” He says against Stiles’ lips. He’s talking about Stiles manipulations, not the request for kisses.

“Perhaps. Or maybe you just finished the job.” 

Peter assents. He’s not the one who locked Stiles in a cage, and for everything he’s done to Stiles, he hasn’t forced him. Physically, anyway. All the traps he laid were out in the open, the promise of reward in their teeth. 

“You enjoyed yourself.” Peter says neutrally.

“It’s enjoyable. I feel like I’m stretching my wings.” He breaks up his words with kisses.

Peter’s eyes open and flare red at that. Encouraged by Stiles’ reference to his abilities.

“I guess I’ll have to help you exercise that muscle then.” He licks into Stiles’ mouth, and runs a hand up and down Stiles’ thighs. Coasting his fingertips against Stiles’ ass. It encourages Stiles’ dick to pay attention. Novel.

Peter pulls him up his chest, so Stiles is now straddling his ribs. Knees under the man’s arms. From here Peter can lick him. Following the strips of cum down Stiles’ stomach, over his sac. It makes Stiles hum. His natural gasps much quieter than what he performs for Peter.

Peter looks at him steadily, slowly. Waiting for a flinch, as he puts his lips over Stiles’ barely there erection. The heat makes him whine, almost pulling back if it wasn’t for Peter’s strong hands on his hips encouraging him forward. 

Peter controls his movements, sets up a pace so Stiles is fucking his mouth. Every few thrusts forward into the heat, Peter forces him still as the man suckles at the tip. Stiles doesn’t know if he wants to rut forward or simply run away. The choice is taken from him anyway. It’s easier like this, giving over to not having a choice. Another thing that someone can take from him. Stiles wonders again if this is punishment for his manipulations, it’s a strange kind of violation. Maybe it’s supposed to be a reward.

“ _ Peter, _ ” he whines, scrabbling at the man’s hair as the pace becomes faster. He still isn’t fully hard, which seems impossible. But suddenly he’s scared. He doesn’t know what of. Just that this is wrong, that he shouldn’t be doing this. That Peter might take something from him if he gives in to it. “Peter! Stop, stop!” 

The man pauses. No one should be able to look that dangerous with a dick in their mouth, but he does. Maybe if Stiles had perfected that look he’d have scared Jerry off that first night. Stiles is going completely soft.

Peter moves him away. Brushes up a hand to wipe tears that Stiles hadn’t even noticed were there. “Shh, it’s okay. You did so good.” They swap positions again, and now he’s under Peter. Suddenly feeling more naked than he had before. “You were so good for me. I’m so proud. You’re so strong, you’ve survived this. You’re going to survive this.” They kiss, and they kiss, and they kiss. Stiles tying down all the caustic feelings running through him. Peter dresses him again, rubbing his limbs that have become frigid with cold. Sharing his heat with him.

_ Vulnerability is a strength in itself _ , Stiles falls asleep in Peter’s arms. No longer needing to worry that the man might try and turn him out.  
  


* * *

 

 

He gives himself three days. In the end Peter will get what he wants anyway, because it's not really Peter who created this awful scenario, but he gives himself three days to just enjoy their stability all the same. Peter must understand, he lets up on the offensive. They have three days as if everything is fine. Like it isn’t the worse thing in the world that they live in cages, and one day Stiles is going to be murdered. By day he has Peter tell him about all the awful things he knows that the hunters have done, and by night he paints a world where him and Peter are choosing to spend time together and not here by force.

 

He gives himself three days.   
  


* * *

 

 

They start with a test. Somewhere far away from Stiles’ tattoos, down at his ankle. Somewhere easy to explain if he’s asked about it. Peter first unwraps Stiles’ bandage and clips some of the netting free before securing it again. Stiles is nearly hyperventilating already.

It’s only just after the food drop off. It’s the first time Stiles had seen Chris since the biting.  _ Only five days prior.  _ Stiles didn’t look at him, he did the only thing he could do and ignored him. Withdrawal his only weapon at this point.

Peter had kissed him when the man was gone. “You made Chris look miserable, I am incredibly grateful.” He says with a smirk.

“How about rewarding me by not cutting me open?”

Peter shrugs, “I’m not that grateful.”

He’s sympathetic though, when he lays Stiles down and drags his pant leg up to reveal pale leg. Peter kisses the inside of the calf, like a threat and a promise. He strokes Stiles’ stomach as Stiles trembles, trying to stay calm.

“What are you scared of?”

“The pain, it’s going to hurt.” Stiles doesn’t want to look at Peter. It’s less effective on the man however.

“It is.”

“Not helping.”

“It is going to hurt. Not as much as you’re scared of it, but there’s going to be pain.”

“And that’s what I’m scared of!” He’s not feeling any less stressed.

“Do you know what’s going to happen if we don’t do this?”

“I’m not going to be in pain…?”

Peter doesn’t answer him, just keeps petting his stomach. Running his thumb over the spot that will soon be gouged. 

Stiles swallows back some bile. “If we don’t do this…. They’ll cut out my eyes.”

“Possibly.”

“They’ll burn me death.”

“Probably.”

“I’ll be stuck here until I die.”

“Definitely.”

“It doesn’t make me less scared of the pain.” He looks at Peter, trying to convey some kind of inner truth. That this isn’t something he can just throw away for the man’s benefit. It’s useless, Peter wouldn’t even allow his own fears to stop him.

“The pain’s coming anyway, you just get to choose when.”

“You’re manipulating me, by telling me I have control.”

Peter smiles at him, “I’m manipulating you. I’m waiting for you to take control.”

Stiles lets out a deep breath. He thinks about the phoenix he never met, with her eyes gouged out. Burning up from being doused with kerosene. That could be him. Or he could choose to be cut open, and possibly burn himself up. The pain is coming either way.

“Do it.”

He bites through his tongue trying not to scream. 

  
  


* * *

 

 

After the first slice of Peter’s claws through him they put something in Stiles’ mouth. Peter rips off a strip of the blanket and pushes it in. “It’s too much.” Stiles answers taking it out again, his spit is bloody and he’s sweating down his neck. 

“You need to bite down on it.” 

Stiles does, it stops him screaming and Peter carves out an inch of his flesh. It hurts more than the bite. He hoped it would hurt less, but he didn’t think about the fact that every bit of his skin is attached to muscle and sinew. 

And it’s slow.

If it was faster then maybe it would shock him and be done, but Peter is trying to lessen the blood flow. Because when they do this for the ten tattoos over his chest and back he’s going to need as much blood as possible left inside him.

And fuck is that a horrific thought, that this is just one and he has so many in front of him to go. 

His skin is being cut out. Peter is pulling it away from its resting place. Each snag another bit of body matter snapping. It’s slow, it’s endless, it hurts. 

Finally it’s done. Stiles pulls the gag out his mouth and pants. He wants water but he can’t get up to the tap. Peter is trying to dress the wound with the bandage, Stiles looks at his face instead of the gash. He’s frowning.

“What’s wrong?” Stiles asks.

“You’re bleeding more than I would hope.”

“You cut me open, I kinda’ figured I would bleed.” He doesn't have the mental energy to hold back his saltiness. 

“We’re not going to be able to do them all in one day.” Peter doesn't really seem to mind, in fact, he often prefers when Stiles is open and playful with him, even when it has some bite.

“Good.” That doesn’t sound like a problem to Stiles.

“We’ll probably need three days, a break in between at least.”

“That’s four.”

“Yes. Four days where no one takes you to shower and sees what we’re doing.”

It’s unlikely. Not with the bandage, and his arm. Not with Chris taking him out for extra showers. They’d be taking a risk. As soon as what they’re doing is discovered the guards will put a stop to it. They’ll be split up. Stiles will lose the stability he has. Fear bubbles in his stomach. 

“We’ll work something out.” Peter tells him. Like Peter always tells him. Because Peter is the one that is always making them move forward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Please get in touch if you think the tags are wrong/need to be added.  
> 2\. I'm gonna give it a few days between chapters to give you guys a chance to feedback & allow me the chance to fix things and maybe add in some stuff if needed.  
> 3\. Thank you so much for reading! Kudos and comments literally support writers. It's free, like the content we give you. Hopefully that's enough (:
> 
>  
> 
> _What do people think? I really like the scene with Stiles manipulating Peter back. I'm hoping that the movement between Stiles saying no to what is happening & him giving in didn't feel too weak. I kinda thought it was obvious to everyone - even Stiles - that he was going to do it in the end. But he just couldn't do it to Peter's schedule so needed to enact some control. Anyway, I hope you're all still enjoying it!_
> 
> _Also, lolol this chapter could be called "just in case you forgot that Peter isn't actually a good guy"._


	9. Different Now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First up, sorry I didn't warn any of you about the break in the update schedule. I totally forgot (like an idiot) that I was going away for pass over and wouldn't have access to the computer. That was an anomaly, and I'm glad I've made it home in time to post an update. (10 days isn't a very long wait anyway).
> 
>  **This chapter has extended warnings at the end.** There's nothing new from what's already be covered in the fic/main tags, but I know some of you are reading this kind of fic for the first time, so I've got SPOILER warnings at the end if you want them.

Peter is clearly looking at the issue from every angle. He’s calm, not the same irritable frustrated he was when he didn’t have Stiles’ support for the plan. But Stiles can see that it’s trapped under his skin all the same.

He tests the guards a few times, gets dragged away with black tar oozing through his veins for his troubles. When he finally returns, shaking and broken in a few places, he questions whether Stiles was taken for a shower all the same. No success, Stiles was taken even in his absence.

It makes the environment tense, but not reactive. Peter going quieter, more controlled, using their meditation time more thoroughly. Stiles watches him critically during these moments. Partly in wonder at the other man’s sheer single mindedness, half perturbed at seeing behind curtain of the process that is Peter getting what he wants.

There’s also despair though, that maybe this is just a too high of a task. That Peter can’t conquer this problem. From the day of the bite Stiles has pinned all his hopes of being okay on Peter managing to get them out of this. Maybe the man can’t.

Not alone anyway.   

 

* * *

  
  


Ignoring Chris when the man takes him to the shower is hard. He’s done it twice already, and it was difficult to keep up the pretense. Mainly because he wants to shout at the man for every soft touch he gives him. Stiles is silent the whole time. He tries to think of it as a strong and powerful statement, he worries it comes across as sulking.

Chris obviously doesn’t like it. He’s been dropping off the food every day, and only left Stiles alone for two days before taking him to shower again. He’s trying to force the issue, or maybe it’s his _concerned feelings_ that has him coming closer.

It’s the crux of the complications for their plan.

Stiles stares out ahead of him as Chris unwraps the bandage, he’s not sure if he’s making any of the right decisions.

“It’s done.” He says when it’s off. Flexing his arm to highlight it. The skin pinches around the bite, but the break is fused.

Chris hesitates, he was going to get fresh bandage. Stiles wants to ask for some, it’ll help him when they cut him open. Cleaner than the blankets they’ve been sleeping under for weeks. But it wouldn’t be easy to explain.

“All right.” Chris responds, putting it away.

Stiles looks at him finally. The man is staring at him, concern on his features. A downward twist of his lips. If his whole world is Peter, Chris is his universe. Not always visible, but the bigger picture. The mechanism behind his existence. The walls around him, and the whispered promise that things could be worse… could be better…

“I forgive you, for whatever that means.” Stiles tells him.

“For what?” Chris walks over to him, between his legs. How they position themselves when there’s the denial shaped blanket of bandaging to be done.

“Any of it, all of it… I don’t have the power to forgive you for putting me here. Only you have that. But I can forgive you for taking away my fantasy that I didn’t deserve any of it. It was a lie anyway.”

Chris touches him, he rubs his finger over the cheekbone that probably has a scar. From the night Jerry tried to kill him. The night he met Peter.

“You don’t deserve to be here.” Chris whispers back to him.

Stiles shrugs, “I’m going to die here anyway.” _There’s power in vulnerability, in weakness, in truth_.

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s easier this way. It lets me be grateful for you,” he leans into Chris’ palm, taking a deep breath in, “lets me take the inches of comfort when you’re the one hurting me.”

Looking back Stiles realizes how useless his previous interaction with Chris was. Asking the man to fuck him. He’d misread what Chris wanted from him by reducing it to mere pleasure. The man could have a wife at home, a boyfriend, a slew of prostitutes to pick from.

Chris wanted absolution.

“You can take it from me, I’m ready now.” Stiles whispers.

Chris kisses him. It’s the softest kiss he’s ever had. He doesn’t moan into it like he would Peter, he just opens himself to what Chris wants. Giving over any pretense that he’s ever had control. It makes Chris hungry for more. He pushes his tongue into Stiles’ mouth, and Stiles has to breathe out steady long breaths to remain calm. It’s different from Peter, from the kisses that he asked for. The one act of intimacy he carved out for himself, Chris overwrites all of that. He takes it, like he’s taken everything else. And Stiles lets him, like that’s okay.

Stiles’ back is against the bench and Chris is over him. Pressing him down, holding his hair so he can kiss and kiss and kiss. It’s like being consumed. He repeats his mantra, to be open. To give over.

He doesn’t move as Chris locks the door, his eyes coast over the contents of the cabinets when Chris returns with something slick. He whimpers into Chris’ mouth as the man pushes two fingers into him. It hurts. Everything hurts. Pain is an inevitability in his life, but fuck is he still scared of it.

Chris kisses down his neck as the man gets his erection out. Stiles whines in pain as it forces him open, cutting open mental wounds along with the parting of flesh. _Give over. Give over._

“I’m sorry,” Chris tells him as he pushes in, “oh my god I’m sorry.” He doesn’t stop. Stiles wonders if Jerry will be the only man who fucked him and didn’t apologize for it. _Did that make him a more honest man?_

Stiles feels the pain heavy in his gut, and it feels like he’s being broken all over again. _Give over. Give over._

“I’m sorry.” Chris doesn’t apologize again.

Stiles doesn’t scream, he doesn’t moan. It’s easier this way, to lay there. His eyes slide over the open cabinets again. It’s filled with things that would make his life easier. Antiseptic, gauze, painkillers. They’re so close, but he can’t have them. The sound of Chris’ skin slapping against him is so loud he wonders if Peter can hear it. Chris takes his jaw and brings it back to him. To kiss, to fuck open with his tongue as the man’s thick cock penetrates unendingly.

It’s like being cut open. Stiles closes his eyes irrationally, in case Chris tries to take them.

Chris doesn’t make the same noises as Peter as he cums. He groans, he pants. He slides an arm under Stiles’ back so he can hump into him harder. Stiles pictures it, the prick hard inside him, spurting out cum. It’s like a second pulse.

He’s shaking when Chris pulls out of him. He can’t be certain, but he thinks Chris is too. _Give over. There’s power in vulnerability._ He sits up slowly and stares at the floor. He feels awful, violated. He’s in pain. Stiles feels like he’s supposed to hide all these things but instead he just wears them.

“Shit.” Chris isn’t touching him, Stiles is glad. In that moment he never wants to be touched again. “Stiles—” Stiles flinches at the name from Chris’ lips. Like it means something. “Fuck. Oh my god fuck.” He doesn’t know how to listen to Chris’ melt down.

Still not looking at the man he asks, “C-can” he doesn’t mean to stutter, “can I have a shower?” He’s just trying not to cry.

“Yes, of course, yes.”

Stiles doesn’t look at Chris as he walks back into the shower block. The water comes on. A flash of cold and then heat. He wishes it was warmer. There’s something very wrong and very cold inside of him.

He doesn’t want to touch his body but he does it anyway. His cock, his cleft. Trying to wipe out the semen. It’s not fully possible, he doesn’t want to put anything inside. The thought makes him feel sick. _Give over._ He retches. Vomiting what little food and water he’s eaten that day down into the drain. _There’s power in vulnerability._

Chris is holding a towel for him. Stiles tries looking at him, but mostly focuses on his chest, his hands. Anywhere but the man’s face. He’s dry again, and pulling on his clothes. He really wishes he couldn’t feel Chris’ cum inside him.

They walk to the door and Chris puts his hand on the lock, before he twists it open he looks at Stiles. “Are you…” What? Okay? Broken? Going to tell someone?

Stiles nods, whatever that means. Before finally opening his mouth. “Can I ask for something?”

Chris looks so grateful Stiles is asking for something, suggesting that there’s some way for him to not be broken anymore. He nods.

“Can I not… can I not see you. Just for a week. Now my arm is—” he holds it up, letting it speak for itself with the lack of bandage. “Can I have a week to, deal with this. Before I see—” He glances back at the bench, before flicking his eyes to Chris’.

Chris looks wrecked. He looks emptier now than he has any other time Stiles has seen him.

He agrees. Promises. He kisses Stiles, but confirms it. That he understands.

They walk back.

Peter’s face is a picture book of emotions. Anger, disgust. Fear, shock. Uncertainty. He knows, of course he knows. Could probably smell, possibly even heard it. He looks like he’s been punched.

Stiles slips into the cell and doesn’t say anything until Chris and the second guard are gone.

  
“I solved our problem, we can start it now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers/Warnings:  
> Although Chris does not physically force himself on Stiles 1. this is a captor having sex with with a captive. 2. It is clear that Stiles doesn't enjoy/is only doing it for survival. 3. Reacts to it very negatively afterwords. The sex is not overly descriptive, but the tone is.... Well it's a bit grim tbh.  
> \----
> 
>  
> 
> _I don't know what to say. This chapter is like a slap in the face every time I read it tbh. For some of you this was a long time coming, to others you'll be shocked and appalled. In the original draft this didn't actually happen, but it became clear why it would when I started testing everyone's motivations. Even if this isn't an 'enjoyable' chapter, I hope you guys appreciate the writing anyway. It's a short chapter to contain the 'bad' in one scene with extra warnings - and I'll upload another soon._


	10. The Other Side

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another update, a bit longer than the last one & on the regular schedule.  
> Thank you as always to everyone who comments & leaves kudos on this fic, it's really amazing to have some feedback from something you've worked hard on.

Stiles thinks he has scared Peter a little bit.

Not in a way that means that Peter is scared _of_ him. There’s only so much a 130 pound teenager with anxiety issues can do to a werewolf. (If Stiles is even 130 pounds, he lost a disgusting amount of weight when living with Jerry, and even though his diet has been steady since swapping cells, it’s not like bread and granola bars are nutritious). If Stiles had to call it, it would be that Peter had managed to rub off on him. That Stiles had dived low enough into their madness to let his body be used up in such a way. Or maybe it was just how ruthless it came across. Cold blooded.

_I so feels cold, there’s something very cold and very wrong inside of me._

“What happened?” Peter is still on the other side of the cell. Stiles has a twinge of fear that he disgusts Peter. Even though this was originally Peter’s idea. Even though it wouldn’t be the first or last time he tried to trade his body for safety.

“I figured out how to keep him away for a while.”

“You think that will keep him away? ….Did he do something to you?”

Stiles shrugs again, his hands are shaking a bit so he tucks them under his arms. “No more than you can probably already tell.”

“Then how do you know he’ll stay away?” Stiles can’t read Peter’s body language. He wants to, to be given a clue as to how this is going to play out now.

“I asked him.”

“You think that worked?”  _Is Peter getting louder? More hysterical? Is Stiles imagining this?_

“I think he’ll understand why I don’t want to see him for a while. And why he owes it to me to give me that.” Stiles’ lip trembles slightly. It’s like a fucking faucet, let out a few emotions and out they all come. Shutting it down now the moment is over isn’t easy.

“Oh… Stiles.”

“It wasn’t that bad.” There’s something hot and bitter in his throat that is making it hard to get the words out.

“It was bad enough.”

“Most of this,” he gestures wildly at himself, his visible misery, “was for show.”

“You showed him, you mean.”

Stiles nods. He kinda wants to sit down. Crossing over to Peter feels like crossing a battlefield. He doesn’t really know what he wants, but he just wants to stop feeling so fucking cold. And normally the answer to that is Peter.

“You are so much stronger than I gave you credit for,” Peter tells him, taking a step forwards.

It’s enough. Stiles walks into his arms, burrowing himself in their shared sweater. It doesn’t get washed as often as everything else. The fabric is less brittle compared to all their other clothes that get subjected to weeks on end of industrial bleach for fabric cleaner.

Peter cards a hand through Stiles’ hair. It’s so long now. He wonders what he looks like. If he would recognize himself. Everything about him is so different now.

Peter kisses the top of Stiles’ head. “You’re so clever. It’s unfair really. Maybe if you didn’t know what to sacrifice you, wouldn’t need to do it.”

“But then I’d be dead, with my eyes cut out.”

Peter moves his head back with his hair, and kisses over the eyelids. A promise. An apology. “I put all these thoughts in your head, and you came out the other side wearing them like armor.”

He wonders if Peter regrets any of it. His hand in Stiles’ transformation. Not enough to stop the mechanisms in motion, to not bring sharp claws to his flesh, but maybe enough to keep him. To want him. Truly.

“Can we go to bed?” Is all Stiles can ask.

“Yes. Let’s hope tomorrow doesn’t come too quickly.”

 

* * *

 

 

That night Peter lays him on his belly and opens him up. He’s not sure if it’s an apology or a remedy. He feels fear deep in his gut, but the slow licks of a tongue over his flesh doesn’t hurt. The man’s persistent, dogged. Licking him open, until his body is shaking. He might have an erection, he might just be sinking into a hot bath, all his nerve endings are alight.

He doesn’t know what he wants, he’s never had the chance to seek pleasure before. It makes him ache, but for what exactly scares him and makes him cold inside to think about.  

Fingers play around his hole, tugging ever so gently to let a tongue lick inside. But never penetrating, never hurting. Even when he feels his body give over, go lax. Trembling softly for whatever Peter wants to give him.

“You can if you want.” He says finally, unsure if this will end that way anyway. If it’ll be better that Peter fucks him, so this is his last memory of sex. A trade for Peter’s sympathy and comfort.

Peter runs his hands over Stiles’ ass again. “I can. I’ve always been able to. But you haven’t asked for this yet.”

Stiles bites his lip, “I don’t want it. I don’t want _that_. Not like I wanted your kisses.”

“Then I won’t give it to you then.”

Stiles relaxes back down, lets his legs fall open a bit more. Peter takes the invitation, and pushes in a finger.

It doesn’t hurt. It feels like dying, like a memory of having what he wants taken from him, but it doesn’t hurt. He thinks of it as Peter healing him, taking out all the bad blood. Peter drags his finger out again and licks over the hole.

“Can you taste him?”

“Yes.” Peter answers.

“Then why?”

“So I’ll know when we go we’ll take none of him with us.” It sounds stupid. A bit gritty and dramatic. But Peter licks him over again, and pushes in a finger and it doesn’t quite feel so much like dying anymore. So maybe this is healing. And maybe Peter really can overwrite this place’s hold on him.

Peter eases a second finger into him, licking around them to help the push. It feels nothing like what Chris did. The fingers are dragged out, and Stiles feels a blush rise up his cheeks as cum clearly slips out with them. Peter licks him again, removes the traces. Kisses against the skin and pushes the two fingers back in again. It’s a rhythm, something solid and safe, that he can acclimatise to. Peter then touches something that makes a glow of pleasure pulse through him.

Stiles whines, and then freezes. “Peter.”

“I can stop, if that’s what you need.”

Pleasure feels like a precipice he can’t come back from.

“Can I trust you?” he asks, voice a whisper.

_You probably shouldn’t, I wouldn’t pick you over getting out of here._

Peter doesn’t say anything straight away. He slips his fingers out of Stiles and moves so his forehead his resting on the small of Stiles’ back.

“Do you know what’s so terrifying about you Stiles?”

Stiles shakes his head. He’s never thought of himself as terrifying, especially since he came here.

“It’s that I can't even be certain that you’re doing any this on purpose.”

 _This_. Manipulating, bartering, begging for Peter to keep him. To choose him. To take him out of here.

It hits home just what kind of psychological games he, Peter, and Chris have been playing all this time. Stiles hopes he’s a knight and not a pawn, but it doesn’t really matter if he’s the only piece in the game and it’s the two men who have been inside him over the past twenty-four hours who are playing.

“I don’t know.” Stiles answers honestly. He has no idea what he’s doing. Whether any of it means something, if he has the ability to want things other than trying to survive.

Peter kisses up his spine, the skin damp from sweat and nerves from the acts they’d committed together. He kisses the six tattoos over Stiles’ shoulder blades. _I promise you. I promise you. I promise you this will hurt you._

“I picked you.” Peter says, against his neck. “I picked you, and that’s how we’re getting out of here.”

Stiles nods. His ankle hurts in a way it hadn’t since Chris knocked it while fucking him.

“Then I trust you.” It might be the truth. He feels like it is.

Stiles comes apart under Peter’s hands. His body already slick from spit and another man’s cum, but he gives over. Gives over to himself, lets the pleasure lick up his spine as Peter fucks his fingers inside of him. Sliding over that switch, again, and again, and again.

“Peter, _Peter, Peter._ ” Maybe if he hadn’t of spent months learning how to call the man’s name he’d say anything else. But for now he just wants to know for sure who is there. “Peter, I’m going to cum. _Fuck fuck_ , I’m going to cum.”

As if a last minute thought Peter slides a hand underneath him and jerks him off. The sensation jerks through him and Stiles sees nothing but white for a second as he pulses into the man’s hand.

 _He gives over. He gives over to himself._  


* * *

 

 

Peter goes to training the next day. They still don’t talk about what really happens during those sessions, but Stiles doesn’t talk much about his horrors either. He waits on the bed chewing the bread (not as stale these days, a better batch) and saving the granola bars. He appreciates the sugar in them, they help mediate his lack of Adderall. Best to save them for last.

He wondered if Chris would come to him while Peter was gone. Unable to stay away, just to check. To make certain that he didn’t break Stiles open. That there’s no blood on his hands.

He doesn’t though. He’ll stay away. It was Stiles’ request, Chris will stand by it, it’s the least he can do. _The literal least. He could let Stiles go, smuggle him out in the night if he wanted to do more._

Stiles ponders whether he’d take it. Whether he’d leave Peter behind. Maybe Chris is his backup plan, maybe Peter should have been asking if he can trust Stiles.

It doesn’t matter.

He’ll cross that bridge when it comes to it.

Peter is tired when he returns. There’s black up his right arm, his limbs shaking. It means no carving today. Stiles is almost disappointed, the need to have this _over with_ high on his mind.

“Did you fight them?”

“I’m not stupid, Stiles. Funnily enough there are other reasons Hunters might want to pump wolfsbane into someone.”

“Wolfsbane.” Stiles says carefully, tracing his hand up the black ink.

“Drat, and there I was trying to hide my weaknesses from you.”

Stiles shoots him a look of outrage, before taking in Peter’s grin.

“Fuck off.” He says with a smile.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ve already decided how you’d kill me off.”

It’s such a strange thing to say that Stiles doesn’t know what to respond. “I… I have no idea how to kill a werewolf.”

Peter huffs out some laughter. He’s tired, laying on his back. There’s only so many positions they have between them. Just constantly moving around the board. “Do you want me to tell you how?”

Stiles pinches his lips, before clambering on Peter’s lap. “Yes.”

He learns more that night about the supernatural than all the months previous he’s lived beside them. Stiles realises now how careful Peter was before never to betray anything that might admit weakness, but now the door appears to be open to him about the intricacies and vulnerabilities of werewolves. It’s a lot to take in, but Stiles finds himself an avid learner. Once upon a time he had loved the idea of learning about the supernatural, the past months may have jaded him. But it’s still a faint rush all the same.

“I wouldn’t kill you though.” Stiles tells him finally.

“How about if I betrayed you?”

Stiles thinks about it, his first urge is to deny it. “Okay, maybe. Then I’d burn you to death, like you’re scared of.” He says it so evenly it makes Peter flinch. The man replaces it with a smile.

“Good. How about Chris? How would you kill him?”

Stiles chews his lip, “If he betrays me?”

“Has he not already?”

Stiles frowns, “I guess.” _Betrayal doesn’t feel like the right word_. “I’d kill him in his sleep, it’d be merciful.”

Peter laughs openly, “Justice. I would not offer anything so short.”

The laughter is infectious as always, like the madness. “No, you’d keep him alive long enough he’d hope to escape. And then wish he was dead.”

They’re both ignoring the fact that Peter has an erection for now. The man’s too tired, and Stiles is still wobbly from the introduction of pleasure to sex the night before.

“How about the guards? How would you kill them?”

Stiles shrugs, “It doesn’t matter.”

“Killing them?”

“As long as they’re dead.”

Peter hums at that. Stiles can tell he wanted more.

“Okay. How about Jerry? How will you kill him?”

Time seems to slow down for a second, before speeding up again. A thousand different ways to kill someone, and to watch them be in pain flicker in front of Stiles’ eyes. _Is this something he’s thought about before?_

Peter growls in pleasure, his cock twitches between Stiles’ legs. Stiles looks at him.

“I saw fire in your eyes.” Peter whispers.

Stiles smiles at him, leaning forward to take kisses from a man conditioning him to kill what will probably amount to sixty bodies if they catch every last guard.

“And you didn’t even have to cut them out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _SO, I don't really know how you will all take this. Like, firstly, here's a hug for enduring the last chapter. And here's me hoping that this chapter is okay. It's so strange, you all have such different opinions on what should happen. I'm actually super glad I wrote this all before, because knowingly writing stuff that will probably disappoint large sections of you would have been hard._
> 
>  
> 
> _Anyway, where am I going with this? When I showed me beta this fic I was like "lolol this fic should be called how to fake an orgasm" and in the end they said that it was kinda' meaningful that Stiles doesn't experience pleasure until literally page 70 of my document. I hope it worked, I've tried hard to have what happened to Stiles feel weighted and that this didn't just brush it under the carpet._
> 
>  
> 
> _Okay this end note got long. Thanks again everyone, I'll see you in the comments._


	11. It Can Hurt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you so much for your support.

The first cut into his back hurts more than he remembered. He thought his shoulders would better take the pain better than his ankle, but he’s become accustomed to living without it already. He’s so scared of being hurt however that it’s almost a relief to start.

He bites harder into the cloth in his mouth. He’s sitting between Peter’s legs, one hand gripping a thigh, the other holding his mouth to try and keep him from screaming. Every cut is more painful from the last. 

“I’m going to need you to stop breathing so hard.” Stiles is panting out through his nose, heavy lungfuls of air making his chest expand. 

He snorts out a sound of distress, but tries to calm his breathing.

“Good, you’re doing so good. You’re so strong. For me, for yourself. You’re going to survive this. You’re taking back control.” Peter’s words are soothing, he coasts of them. On the pain, listening to the praise. 

The last tug of skin comes loose, and Peter finally stops. Stiles takes the cloth from his mouth. 

“I don’t know how I’m going to get through all of them.” Stiles rasps out. Peter strokes his back, trailing the right shoulder blade that is currently untouched.

“You will.”

Stiles makes the mistake of watching Peter put his slip of skin on a cloth, bile rising in his throat at the sight of it. “It’s not going to get any easier.”

“No, it’ll probably get harder. But then it’ll get easier. You’ll start to accept it as an inevitability.” 

Stiles nods, hissing as Peter dabs the wound with a damp strip of cloth. 

“I’m going to try and give you some of my blood.” Peter tells him.

“What do you think that’ll do?”

“It might quicken the healing, or at least the clotting. It’s hard to tell, thanks to the collar.”

“If you didn’t have the collar, you could make it hurt less?”

“I would take away all your pain.” It’s a nice thought, but not something available to him. There are so many things Stiles doesn’t have access to.

Half an hour later Peter starts on the next one. Stiles tries to convince him to do one of the tattoos not so close to the first, but Peter insists this will minimise the pain in the long run.

“I might open up one of the old cuts if I come back here tomorrow. And the area will be more inflamed. It’s okay, you can take this.” 

The process starts again. 

The tattoos on his back are in strips of three over each shoulder blade. Peter starts at the bottom, so the dripping blood doesn’t obscure his line of sight. He keeps an ear out for guards, but they’re mostly ignored. They’re both special cases. Peter the Alpha to keep the other wolves from going insane, Stiles a ticking time bomb for when they want to deploy it. Maybe it would have been worse if either of them were  _ useful  _ to the hunters daily… It’s hard for Stiles to imagine his experiences here being worse. 

By the time Peter starts on the third one, Stiles is dizzy. He’s probably lost a fair amount of blood. They’ve completely sacrificed one of the blankets to the cause. Peter presses damp cloth to the cuts even as he works open a new one. 

The pain reaches a peak when Peter is cutting along the base of the tattoo, not an inch from the cut he just carved out. Stiles pulls out the gag, “T-talk to me.” 

His teeth chatter, jaw aching from gritting it shut for so long. 

Peter grants his wish.

“You're so good for me, you're strong. You can take this…”  _ It’s not enough.  _

* * *

 

 

Sleeping that night is hard, Stiles is used to sleeping on his side. Face tucked into Peter’s chest and back against the second mattress. Even wearing Peter’s sweater is painful, and lying on his side pulls at the cuts. They heal a little better than his ankle all the same, clotting and cracking the skin around them. Better than the open wound his ankle remained for over a day. It suggests that Peter’s blood did something at least.  _ Not enough _ .  _ It’s never enough.  _

He’s lying on Peter’s chest, Peter has his arm underneath the fabric of the henley. His hand cupped over the cuts, acting as a buffer to the painful scratch the rough wool would give them.

“Tell me something nice.” Stiles asks him.

“Am I not always nice?” Peter answers with a smirk.

“No, you’re conning me into killing myself and maybe every other person in this complex. I need a break, tell me something nice.” Things are easier when the truth is open to you.

Peter hums. He does that a lot, and Stiles decides he likes it. Leaning into the sound that reverberates out his chest cushioning his head. 

“Do you like chocolate?”

“Ugh, don’t tease me.”

“Before, I would make chocolate brownies with chunks of chocolate chip cookie in them on weekends.”

Stiles moans at the thought. “What did they look like?”

“The brownie was a rich dark fluffy cake, and the cookies were crunchy pale spots throughout.”

“I think my mouth is going to orgasm.”

“Mmh, if you keep moaning, I might join you.” It’s an empty tease, Stiles is too broken for anything like that. And they had misguidedly jerked each other off the night before after getting off on planning to murder everyone. Stiles’ life was becoming increasingly more strange by the minute, but he couldn’t find himself caring.

“How do you get the cookie in them?” It's such a curious thought, imagining Peter in a kitchen. Stiles thinks he likes it.

“You make tiny little cookies first, cook them just long enough for them to go hard, and then scatter them through the the brownie mix.”

“Who did you make them for?”

“My sister’s children. Although her husband ate enough of them Talia would complain I was making him fat.”

Stiles smiles at the thought, “What were their names?”

“Laura, Derek, Cora, Michael and Daisy.” 

“That’s a lot of kids.”

“Wait until you find out how many siblings I had.” 

“Were they all in the house?”

“Argents plan things very well.” 

“Did you have any children?” It dawns on Stiles that Peter is a man. He’s old enough to be a father thrice over. He could have had a whole life that ended with the fire. It makes Stiles wonder what the man had been like before all this happened to him.

“No. Thankfully I never felt the need to procreate, enough little people always underfoot as it was.”

“And now?”

“And now they’re all dead.”

Stiles kisses the sternum under his mouth, “We got away from nice.”

“The cookies were nice. I’ve always loved cooking.”

“What was your favourite dish?”

“Venison, bloody as possible.” Peter answers without hesitation. 

“Of course it is. Would you catch it yourself?”

“Always.”  _Of course._

“Could you bake?”

“Reasonably well, breads in particular.” 

Stiles is drifting thinking about it, his concave stomach aches for rich, flavorsome food.

“What will you cook for me? When we’re on the outside?”

Peter snorts, “I thought we were having a night off from manipulation.”

Stiles smiles, it probably shouldn’t be funny, “The person with their back cut open gets to pick the rules.”

“If only I had known, I would have clawed myself open weeks ago to save myself from your clever hooks.”

Stiles kisses him again, insinuating himself closer, “I imagine lying on a couch. It’s soft and warm. There’s an open door and I can go outside whenever I want. I can see grass, and flowers, and trees. And I’m watching you make dinner. You’re wearing nice clothes, every day you wear something new. But you still let me steal them and wear them whenever I’m cold.” It’s a barrage of fantasy and intimacy.

Peter hums again. Drags a hand through Stiles’ hair, gripping it, before relaxing it.

“Okay. I’ll make you ox heart soup.” He gets into it, “The broth is thin and glossy. Fine slices of onion, peppers and fresh coriander. The ox heart is whole, swollen from the liquid. Big enough that if you held it in your nimble hands you couldn’t have your fingers touch. I’d serve it to you hot, cutting the heart open so the broth sits in the the atrium like a petri dish.”

“What does a heart look like?”

“It’s as strong as it is vulnerable. The first time you see it beating in a chest you can’t believe that anything could have that power. I thought it was going to leap out at me.” Peter's voice might be reverent.

“What did you do?”

“I bit down.”

“Was it an animal’s?”

Peter nods, “An elk. My first kill big enough to still have a beating heart when I took it down”. Stiles can picture it in his mind, all the cartlige and sinew. It reminds him of his own flesh being ripped open.

“Does it look like a human heart?”

“Bigger, thicker walls.”

“Have you seen a human heart? I mean… Like you did the elk.”

Peter hums, the final notes a growl. It’s a comfort. “Yes.”

“Did you bite down?”

“Yes.”

“Did it hurt them?”

“Not enough.”

“Did they deserve it?”

“Every Argent deserves to have their heart ripped out.”

“Oh…  _ Oh _ .”

“Yes.” 

“How many?”

“Not as many as they took.”

“Is Chris the only one left?”

“He is now. When they caught me his father was still alive.”

“You killed him.”

“Technically Chris did.” Peter’s mouth twists into a smile, “you should have seen how happy his father was to be turned. The old man was a hypocrite right until the end.”

“So Chris killed him.”

“Mercifully, in his eyes. Although I’d bet he’d imagined doing it to the old bastard most of his life.”

“This is why he hates you.”

“Maybe. He’s a complicated man, with a complicated hatred. He hasn’t killed me off, surely by now they could have found another Alpha. And yet here I am, holding his death warrant. It doesn’t matter to me though, not for what I need to do.”

“To kill him.”

“To kill him.”

“How many people have you killed?”

“I’ve lost count.” 

Stiles nods, it wasn’t the most surprising answer. None of what they were talking about was surprising to him.

Peter cards his hand through Stiles’ hair again. “Still want me in your kitchen?”

Stiles hums, trying his best to sound like Peter. “Yes. Tell me about the garden, tell me about the sky, tell me about—” Peter brings his head up to kiss him. A warm tongue stealing the words from his mouth. Pushing new ones in, words that they wouldn’t say out loud.

He breaks them apart, and situates Stiles back on his chest. “You’d look beautiful in the grass. Laying on your back, long stem  _ cortaderia selloana  _ framing you,  _ pennisetum  _ flowers falling in your hair. The sun has brought out your freckles, your moles almost hidden between them. It’s warm, almost unbearably so, but it’s damp and cool in the grass bed. Insects your company in the undergrowth,  _ adalia bipunctata, coccinella septempunctata,  _ an  _ anthocharis cardamines  _ flies past your face.”

“And you’re there?”

“And I’m there.”

“Tell me about the sky.” 

* * *

  
  
  


The next day Stiles balks at the idea of more cutting. In the night the sweater had fused to one of his cuts, and Peter had had to ease it off. Opening up the skin to another round of bleeding.

“If we take this day off, tomorrow we’ll start with your chest instead.” Peter tells him.

“What? No, then I won’t be able to lie on my back or my front.”

“The chest will hurt more, we should finish with your back.”

“No, if it hurts more we should put it off.” Stiles isn’t phased anymore by Peter’s grim determination, but he still resists it.

“We don’t want to do this at your weakest. Now choose, today your back and a break tomorrow. Or we start with your front tomorrow?” It doesn't feel like a fair deal, he watches Peter warily from where he's standing near the tap. The man close enough that it should be threatening, someone telling you they need to hurt you should be threatening. It's not.

“You’re not doing a very good job of making me feel like I have control.” Stiles quips sourly.

“Letting you choose what order we take them out is not control. Taking back your powers is control.”

Stiles sighs, he’s going to regret it tomorrow, but he opts for the day off.

“If I need to, I will tie you down, gag your mouth, and take them if I have to.”  _It should be threatening._

Stiles scowls at him, “I liked you better when you manipulated me covertly.”

Peter smiles and ruffles his hair, “That’s because it didn’t work on you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I actually love this phase of the fic, with Stiles growing into his own when it comes to being manipulative & their relationship taking on a new character. It's taken so long for us to get here, but I think it makes sense. I re-read my whole fic again just to watch Stiles' slowly changing, it's one of my favourite things._
> 
>  
> 
> _p.s. sorry this chapter was so dialogue heavy._


	12. Towards The Inevitable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see end for notes.

It hurts to lay on his back, but he’s trying so be as flat as possible. There is a tattoo on each side of his collar bones, and two over his heart. Peter kisses the area gently, stroking Stiles’ side trying to calm him down. With his heart racing, the blood flow will be upped. 

“What are you thinking about?” Peter asks him softly, evenly.

“You don’t want to know.”

Peter smiles, “I probably do.”

Stiles snorts, “I’m thinking about you eating my heart out my chest.”

“Mmhh, not the worse idea.”

“Oh my fucking god Peter!” 

Peter laughs, brings out his sharpened teeth and lays them over where Stiles’ heart is. Stiles watches him, slightly curious as to how it looks. It makes Peter smile. “Not that scary after all huh?”

“Tell that to the version of me who saw you shift for the first time.”

“I could have taken your heart from you that first night.”

“But you didn’t.”

“But I didn’t.”

Stiles lets out a long sigh and points his toes. Trying to relax himself. Peter gets on board and takes his foot and massages it. Following the exercise up to Stiles’ arms. Wringing out the tension. It makes Stiles feel soft. He keeps breathing slow, and picks up the newly cut gag, slotting it in his mouth. 

“You’re so strong.” Peter tells him, straddling his legs so he’s in the right position. “You’re so clever. You’re going to survive this. You’re taking back control.” The first cut through his chest feels like someone had stabbed him. It’s a horrible intimate pain, sharp claw going through sensitive skin. “We’re going to lay in the grass, you’re going to look so beautiful.” 

Stiles can feel the blood slip down his ribs, pooling in his belly. It’s so strange to feel ticklish at the same moment of insurmountable pain. Each time Peter lifts another bit of skin he feels the flesh snap and pull. Like little hands desperately trying to keep hold of what was being systematically removed.

“I’ll get to watch you run through forests. Take dips into ponds. I’ll learn what your body looks like when you’re full of food, your belly round and distended.” The higher Peter’s claws go the more it hurts. Every now and again he has to press _deeper_ to cut out some of the flesh and Stiles is certain it’s going to go right through him. 

“I can lay you out under the stars. Watch fireflies dance over your head.  _ Lampyrinae luciolinae,  _ see their light reflect in your eyes.” 

Peter is cutting along the top now, deft confident strokes. Snipping away tissue.

“Your eyes, you get to keep your eyes. So I can watch your emotions flicker through them. You’ve had fire in your eyes since I met you. A deep furnace that threatens to burn anyone who crosses you.”

Stiles has been as quiet as possible throughout the whole thing. Inevitable, Peter had said. He tries to keep his breathing low, the air puffing out through his nose each time. 

Peter tugs free the final bit and it makes Stiles wince. 

He can watch Peter this time, mop up the wound with damp cloth. The man tries laying his hand over the cut and taking some of the pain. Nothing happens. “Sorry.” He says with a smile, removing the cloth and biting open his own finger. Stiles hisses through the gag when he touches the wound with the bloody pad of his finger. As if that could even hurt more. He goes to remove the gag, but Peter stops him.

“It’ll be easier if we keep going.”

Stiles winces, looks hard into Peter’s eyes and tries to tell him that he’s  _ so close  _ to breaking down. That he doesn’t know if he can keep going. That he’s scared. Of the pain, of the blood, of what it’ll mean when they’re all gone. But it doesn’t matter now. They’ve started, whether they want to or not they have to go on. By this time next week Stiles will be taken for a shower and the guards will see what Peter has done, and they’ll be split it up. What they’ve had is over, and the only option is going forwards.  _ When everything goes to hell, turn left. _

Stiles nods, and the process starts again.

 

* * *

 

 

His mind coasts on the pain. His only anchor the melodic tones of Peter’s voice. He hears the Latin for plants, and insects, and at one point cloud structures. He wonders where Peter learned all these things from. What he liked to read when at home. Who he told these things to before he was locked in a cage with Stiles. 

Stiles pictures them together, in their imaginary house which is almost the exact same shape and size of their cell. Because it’s hard to imagine Peter anywhere else. Like the man couldn’t be corporal outside this structure. Like Stiles dreamt him up, and really he’s alone in here. Clawing off his skin in a final fit of insanity. 

“Maybe in the spring I’ll grow rows of legumes.  _ Pisum sativum var. saccharatum,  _ did you know there’s a breed of snap peas called Sugar daddy? Sixty days from sowing to eating. I could pick them in the morning while you’re still asleep, and wake you by squeezing out the sweet gems onto your tongue.”

Peter has fallen down the rabbit hole. Wrapping Stiles’ fantasy around him as tight as Stiles had draped himself in Peter’s madness. Perhaps they both thought they had managed to keep one foot out the door. There's no exits in cages it appears, even the mental ones.

Peter pulls free the second strip of skin, and Stiles feels some heat bubble within him. He flinches, wincing as it means that the cloth Peter was dabbing him with pushes closer into the wound. Stiles removes the gag.

“Peter.  _ Peter _ , I feel… I don’t feel so cold.”

Peter gives him a concerned look and goes to touch his forehead.

“You think you have a fever?”

“No, I mean _the_ cold. The ice I’ve felt inside myself since I’ve been here… since those weeks I lost at the beginning. Since... since the binding tattoos… _ I don’t feel so cold _ .”

Peter’s eyes glow red. Carefully he moves over Stiles so he can kiss him before he burrows his nose against Stiles’ neck and  _ breathes _ .

“You don’t smell different yet.”

“Did she smell different?”

“I don’t know. All I could smell was kerosene and burning flesh.”

“Maybe I won’t smell different. Maybe I’ll just be different.” He’s excited for the first time since they spoke about this. Since Peter told him that they were going to make Stiles’ powers manifest and burn down every last person who held them here. He yearned for them suddenly, like a weapon just out of your reach when a mad dog has its jaws around you.

Peter bites his own tongue open, blood dripping down his lips, and licks over the wounds. Delicate, soft, painful. Stiles dreams about Peter eating his heart out, and almost whispers  _ do it. Now, before it’s too late _ .

The third cut isn’t so bad. Maybe Stiles is getting used to the pain, or maybe he can see where he’s going now, and the fear of the journey has lessened. It still hurts, but it was always going to hurt. Peter is already halfway through when Stiles realizes he’s not even wearing the gag.

“I think we’re going to do it.” Stiles says.

Peter looks up from his concentration, a half smile on his lips. “It looks that way.”

“Did you doubt it?”

“A few times.” Economical, not cruel.

“Doubt me?”

“I doubted my ability to make you do it.”

“Oh wow, humility. Fuck  _ ouch _ , did you do that on purpose?”

“I would never be that petty.” Peter has a smile on his lips. 

“ _ Sure _ . But I did. I doubted I could go through with it.”

“But not anymore.” Stiles will never get over how earth shattering Peter's smile can be. 

“Not anymore. The only way out is through.”

Peter keeps talking to him, opposed to at him, for a while. Trying to engage his mind, away from what is happening. But Stiles starts to feel a bit loopy after a while, he’s dizzy. He tells Peter which makes the man get a pinched look on his face. Stiles feels good though. Warm. Warm from his skin burning with the pain. And warm from a shard of ice in his bones slowly thawing.

“We should stop here. Five out of ten.” Peter decides.

“No, keep going. I’m getting better.”

“You’re dizzy, you’ve lost a lot of blood already.” He cuts open his hand again, and works it into the wound. More blood this time, like he can convince Stiles’ body to take some back.

“The sooner it’s done. The sooner it’s done.” Stiles' eyes are closed.

“We need you awake on the last day.”

“I’ll be awake. Keep going. One more, I can take one more.” There's silence for a moment, and Stiles peaks open his eyes to look at the man perched over him.

Peter looks hesitant. It’s so strange. Stiles is struck by the fact that Peter isn’t lying to him. For sure, Peter is just worried about doing too much harm. This is the first time Peter has hesitated for something that will get him out. Get him what he wants. It makes Stiles smile.

“You picked me.”

Peter looks up at him. There’s a smear of blood on his cheek, probably from Stiles’ own body. It makes him look like a murderer.

“I picked you.”

They do one more, and then another. Stiles passes out some point before the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So a lot of you who were following this fic will notice that I haven't updated in a while - a surprise since this fic has been completed since before I started uploading. The truth is that I'm leaving fandom, for a variety of reasons. I'm not gonna delete any of my fics, so don't worry about panic downloading, I'm just not gonna' write anymore.
> 
> Anyway, I'm gonna upload everything I have of this fic and everything else I have and then purge them from my hard drive. I might write a leaving message on the final chapter, we'll see. Thanks for the ride guys, you've been amazing.


	13. Insurmountable Today

Stiles wakes up when the guard tells Peter to get against the wall. He watches Peter smirk at the man, but move quickly anyway. The sooner prying eyes leave the better. 

He feels awful. Shaky. Dizzy. Everywhere hurts. His back that he’s lying on aches from the first day’s cuts, his front feels like it has five knives dug into it. The ones over his heart are the deepest. Stiles thinks he’s going to be sick, if he could even move. 

When they are alone again Peter returns to him, helps him sit up. Force feeding him a granola bar.

“I think we’re going to have to wait until later to cut the last ones out.” Stiles says, listing to the side, leaning against Peter’s body.

“Until tomorrow.”  Answers Peter evenly.

“You said four days.”

“And now it’s five.” Stiles can’t work out why Peter is the one saying this.

“It’s a risk.”

“All of this has been a risk.”

“I feel better. I feel warm Peter.” He doesn't want Peter thinking he's too weak for them to go through with this.

 “You’ll get there.” 

 

* * *

 

 

Stiles gets worse. They manage one cut the next day, but he passes out before it’s finished. Stiles wishes he could have watched Peter’s face as he considered the options. Keep cutting with Stiles unconscious, or wait until he’s better. 

Stiles awakes again when Peter moves him, trying to let more of his blood into the cuts. He whines in pain, squinting at the light in the cell that is normally considered dim but to his fragile eyes are currently blinding.

“Did you finish?” He asks, trying to rally his energy.

Peter shakes his head, “two left.”

“We should do it now.”

“No.” Peter’s will has always been insurmountable. 

“It’s been five days.”

“Then we’ll do six.”

“Do you even still want to get out of this place?” Stiles shouts.

Peter pinches his lips, his eyes glancing red before muting down again. 

“You’re frustrated. We’re almost there. You want to rip the band-aid off and get things started. I understand that. But you’re going to yield to my decision. We are waiting another day.” 

Stiles scowls at him. Angry, scared. Frustrated that he finally wants something and it’s in his grasp and Peter is keeping him from it. Inevitably he gives in, though. His body is tired, his head is stuffy. His limbs feel weak. He’ll always give in to Peter, there’s no other option here.

“Okay, okay. You’re right. Or maybe you’re not, but, I’ll trust you to be right.”

Peter kisses him, hard and fast enough that is makes Stiles dizzier, before pushing their foreheads together. “Where did my scared little rabbit go? That hid in corners and couldn’t stop himself from shaking at night.”

Stiles wrinkled his nose at the thought. It was true, it was him. Once. Because that wasn’t him before the cells. And it isn’t him now. How many people had Stiles been since he got here?

“He got eaten by a wolf.”

Peter hums. “Then what about my sly viper, that snuck into my bed and sunk its teeth into Chris Argent?”

Stiles grins at that one. “This time _I_ swallowed up a wolf.”

“And what are you now? A little bird who wants to burn the world down?”

Stiles’ smile feels bigger, the heat in his chest burns. Like its purging all the remaining ice that had set in like rot months ago. “I’m a phoenix, and I still have my eyes.”

 

* * *

 

 

Peter gives him blood every hour. It helps. At first he was sure it was just a placebo between them, but the new wounds heal quicker than his ankle ever did. He feels stronger as well. Achy though, and when he moves too fast he winces at the strain. 

“What if I don’t know what to do?” It’s a thought that’s plagued him a few times about their plan, the bit where it comes down to him.

“Good question.”

“Don’t you have an answer?”

“Well I don’t have any kerosene, but I guess I could cut your eyes.”

Stiles scowls at him, but then leans down to kiss him. He loves straddling Peter, his thighs framing the man’s hips. Looking down like he’s the one who has the control in their relationship. Peter laying back, replete, proving that he’s, in fact, the one with all the power.

“I need my eyes. How will I know who to kill without them?”

“Ah, good point. I guess you’ll need to keep them.” 

Peter bites open his finger and coats the cuts again. Stiles likes it, like they’re doing a blood rite together. To bond them as warriors. Survivors.

A cold thought whispers through Stiles’ head.

“What if I kill you?”

Peter doesn’t stop what he’s doing, the idea doesn’t seem to perturb him.

“An undesirable outcome.”

“Doesn’t it scare you?”

“Death? No. But as you so aptly put it before, burning alive: yes.”

Stiles frowns. “I don’t want you to die.”

“We’re in agreement then.”

“No, Peter. I’m not lying to you,” Stiles is suddenly frustrated at how tightly wrapped they are in all this  _ madness _ . Where he doesn’t know which way is up, or who he is, or what he wants, and what Peter wants for him. “I—I don’t want to be out there. Without you. You’re my whole world—”

“Are you going to talk about our piss again?”

“Ughed! Shut up! Why don’t you believe me? I’m not lying to you. You can hear my heart.”

Peter pinches his lips, and frowns a little at him. “I’ve heard your heart every day we’ve spent together.”

_ Every day that Stiles broke himself down and turned himself into something Peter would want. Want to keep. Want to save. The best manipulation is the truth. _

“But we did it. We’re done now. We’re here. We don’t need to...” Stiles doesn’t know what to say. His heart is racing suddenly, like this might be a mistake. That he’s going to lose Peter if they leave. He feels sick, and sad, and miserable. And like he’s alone all over again.

“Hey, shhh, it’s okay. I’m not going anywhere.”

“You are, and I might kill you. I might kill myself. I hope I do. Fuck. If you’re gone. I hope I’m dead. Okay? That’s real. I’m real. I don’t want to lose you, that’s real!” 

He’s hyperventilating, he’s warm. He feels fire in his veins, in his blood. He feels it prickle behind his eyes. Stiles feels like he’s about to fly apart.  _ About to burst into flames. _

“Stiles,  _ Stiles _ , look at me. Look at me. Shit, Stiles please.” Peter is talking to him and it feels very far away. At some point he must have covered his face with his hands as Peter is peeling them back. “Stiles. Look at me. Look at me little bird, show me your eyes.” 

Stiles looks at him, their faces are close. Peter has sat up, their breaths are mingling. Stiles reaches forward and kisses him. Tries to tell him all the things that can’t be said with words, because words don’t mean anything anymore. 

Peter holds him as he quakes in the man’s arms. 

“Do you believe me? Is any of this real to you?” Stiles whispers out desperately.

“I do. I do sweetheart. I fucked up somewhere along the way, and I took it in. All of it. Your garden, your plants, how you look laying in the grass. Those are me, not you. Those are the things I want, that I made you want.” 

“I don’t care if they’re you. They’re me now, this is who I am. I don’t want to lose you.”

“You’re not. We made it. There’s only one way out now. We’re going through.”

_ Turn left. _

 

* * *

 

 

Stiles wanted Peter to fuck him. And Peter groaned into his neck, but had to decline. Maybe if Stiles was stronger he said, maybe if they had something for slick. But it wasn’t safe. Stiles frowned.

“If I die tomorrow, I don’t want the only people who have touched me not to have loved me.”

Stiles has the horrible feeling he almost made Peter cry, and it was so horrifying he thought he was going to be sick. “They didn’t touch you. Not you. Not who you really are.” Peter promises him, somehow always finding Stiles’ most darkest fears and shedding light on them, before getting Stiles to ask for so many other things. 

“I want to give you a blow job.” 

Peter groans again, “You couldn’t have wanted all these things before you’d been physically wounded?”

Stiles laughs, “That would be too easy.”

“Ah, well that would be too out of character for you.”

“Please, let me have this. If you won’t fuck me. Or cut out the last of my tattoos. Or let me have any fun whatsoever, let me try.” 

“You’re manipulating me.” Peter says with a smile. 

Stiles shoots him a dark look back, before breaking into his own grin. “Yes. I am. Did it work?”

Stiles learns what it means to sit on someone’s face. It was probably a very clever ploy of Peter’s because even though Peter’s cock is directly in front of him, he’s finding it hard to focus on anything but the hot tongue sliding over his opening. 

“ _ Fuck _ !” he whines, shifting his hips so Peter’s tongue is worked into him some more. Peter drags him backwards so he can fit his warm mouth over Stiles’ sac, sucking each round ball into his mouth in turn. Stiles feels like he’s about to collapse, like his arms leaning on Peter’s stomach that should be holding him up just turned into jelly. It’d be nice, to lay there, as Peter eats him out. Not having to move, just enjoy. Pliant under the pleasure.

But that’s not what he wanted. He doesn’t want to be passive, this was supposed to be about taking an active role in what they were doing. Stiles leans forward, whining as it gives Peter the space to slide a finger inside him alongside his tongue, and breaths a shaking breath over Peter’s cock. It’s a big thing. The sort of dick Stiles was scared Peter had when he first met him and was sure that it’d be a weapon against him. 

Now it wasn’t a weapon, it was an offering. An opportunity. 

Stiles blows out some cold air from his lips. Peter’s dick is uncut, but the erection has the smooth head peaking out all the same. The man’s dick twitches under the attention, and some of the licks along Stiles’ hole become more sloppy and less finessed. It’s the reaction he was hoping for. 

Stiles puts his hand around the head of the dick, looping around where the foreskin is shrouding it, and drags it back experimentally. He’s rewarded with a small bead of precum appearing from the tip. Stiles has touched Peter’s cock a lot now. Peter likes to put Stiles’ hand around it, and then his own around that and jerk it fast and hard. Harder than Stiles would ever pull on his own cock. 

Peter groans against him as he gives the erection three quick little pulls, each time daring to pull the foreskin back further. Peter rewards him for his ministrations by moving around the finger penetrating him, adding a second one. The stretch a hint of pain, but not enough to scare Stiles. Each slide is soothed by Peter licking over his hole, making Stiles’ attempts to keep jerking Peter off harder. 

It’s a new battle of wills, Stiles thinks with a smile. This time the aim of who can give the other pleasure first. Stiles leans forward more so his mouth is next to Peter’s cock—the cuts on his back stretching in a way that hurts, but he ignores it—and he lets the sticky phallus slide across his lips. 

“ _ Fuck _ .” Peter says beneath him. Stiles is struck with how expressive Peter is in his pleasure. Nothing like Jerry, or even Chris. It counteracts the deep warring feel of fear that bubbles in Stiles’ gut as he thinks of sex acts. _What can be taken from him_. Instead he gives, holding the cock in his hand tighter and dragging his tongue across the tip. The taste is salty, but not surprising. Licking away the precum rewards him with more, and he dutifully licks that up as well. Jerking the cock in front of him, encouraging more onto his tongue.

He only realizes that Peter had stopped his own ministrations when the man starts again. He drags Stiles’ hips down again so the hot flat of his tongue can work inside him. Sucking on the flesh, growling in pleasure, and Stiles can’t keep licking but at least erratically jerks Peter off.

“Holy fuck,” Stiles jumps as the two fingers push inside him and instantly go over his prostate. Stroking it, encouraging sparks of pure pleasure up his spine. It makes him jerk his hips in response, which Peter encourages.

“Bring your hips back,” Peter tell him. Stiles doesn’t want to, he wants to keep trying to give Peter head, but the man can move him anyway like he’s utterly weightless. And Peter sucks on his balls again which makes him keen. 

“Peter,  _ Peter _ , I can’t reach your dick like this.” 

Peter mouths at the base of his cock, “It’s not going anywhere. Let me give you this.” And Stiles wants to say  _ yes it is, we might die in two days time,  _ but really all he says is ‘ _ yes, please yes _ ’ and Peter moves him and his cock falls between Peter’s lips.

If Stiles was able to concentrate on anything else he might think it was a bit unfair how he thrusts the entirety of his cock into Peter’s welcoming mouth, whereas Peter had had nothing but kitten licks from him. But it’s hard to think that way when your dick is being enveloped by wet heat.

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Stiles keens, his hips undulating as he tries to get off against the consistent rub of Peter’s tongue against the side of his dick. It goes  _ so far  _ back, it’s hot  _ everywhere.  _ This is the first time Stiles has fucked anything, the closest he got before was a half hard erection being sucked by Peter, but now  _ now, _ every time he thrusts forward there’s just more pleasure. More feeling. More friction. 

He speeds up his thrusting, he can feel Peter’s nose against his sack. One of the man’s hands is encouraging him  _ in  _ but giving up all control of pace, the other gently sliding up and down his cleft.  

“Peter, Peter, Peter!” He keens as those two fingers push back inside him. A stretch now the spit has dried, but delicious all the same as they claim his prostate. He’s being touched everywhere. Manipulated from the inside and sucked every time he thrusts forward. It’s the best feeling he’s ever had. “Peter! I’m going to— _ fuck _ —I’m coming. I’m coming, I’m coming.” He has no idea how fast his hips are moving as he fucks in every strip of cum he has hurtling out of him. 

He collapses down onto Peter’s stomach. All of his limbs are shaking in pleasure. Every orgasm has been like a surprise since he managed to get his erection back, but this one was truly mind shattering. The pressure agitates his wounds, but he doesn’t care. He just wants to stay here forever. 

Stiles whines however as Peter keeps sucking on his now soft cock. It’s over sensitive and that which was brilliant and amazing, is now too much and sore. “I think I died.” Stiles says against Peter’s belly.

“Anticlimactic.” Peter responds, finally popping off Stiles’ cock, and pushing the slighter man down his chest. 

“Maybe for you. But I think I transcended to a different dimension at one point. That’s better than burning up.” Peter’s cock twitches in front of him, in response to the praise. Stiles blows cold air at it again and smiles, “Your dick likes me complimenting you.”

“My dick likes a lot of things about you.  _ Shit. _ ” Stiles inches forward and sucks the very tip of it into his mouth. It was strangely calming, having it there. An inch of heavy weight on his tongue, salty fluid there to be lapped up. Stiles cups the head again and starts jerking the cock into his mouth. He tries to grip it hard like he knows Peter likes, but he can’t keep up a rhythm and suck at the same time. 

In the end Peter adds his own hand to his erection, and begins jerking it. Long hard pulls, that look punishing, but encourage more of his dick into Stiles’ mouth. Stiles sucks on it hard, enjoying the sound of Peter hissing, and tries to follow with his mouth down as far as Peter’s hand goes. Peter grabs his hair with his other hand. “You don’t need to push yourself so far.” He tells him. 

Stiles is slightly annoyed at Peter’s cooing, but he does realize that each time the cock was knocking against the back of his throat he was tensing in fear. He hums around the erection, and pulls back slightly, keeping only two inches in his mouth. He tries to speed up, flick his tongue against the head. Although he’s experienced this act many times, he doesn’t really know how to make it good for the other person. Before the object of pleasure appeared to be  _ hold down the other person and shove your dick in their throat,  _ Peter doesn’t seem to be hunting for that however. He whines each time Stiles just bobs his head over the tip, letting his lips slip over the ridge. Peter’s hand is still in his hair, but he doesn’t pull Stiles down at all, doesn’t make him swallow more than he can handle.

Peter speeds up his jerking, “ _ Fuck, fuck, fuck,  _ keep still.” He jerks his cock faster, tensing his hand in Stiles’ hair so he can keep just the tip inside of Stiles’ mouth. Stiles pants out from his nose, waiting, wanting it to be good for Peter. As the man starts moaning louder, Stiles remembers he can probably still  _ suck.  _ So he does, closing his lips around the head and sucking against the inch of cock in his mouth. Peter cums. 

“Fucking, fuck! Stiles, ah, yes,  _ yes, yes. _ ” Stiles swallows. It’s more bitter that the precum, and _something_ about it is an uncomfortable reminder of everything that way, but it doesn't last longer than a few moments, and then Peter lets him go quickly. Stiles slumps to the side off of Peter’s body in response. 

“Ouch.” He bashes one of the cuts on his back.

“Please stop trying to die through sex. It’s ruining the experience.” Peter says, patting his head affectionately. 

Stiles finally shuffles round so he can he back on Peter’s chest the correct way, “It’s a better way to go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _At one point 'turn left' was how I ended this chapter. But I'm glad I decided to make it longer and have the intimacy alongside it._
> 
>  
> 
> In case you didn't see my note in the last note, I am leaving fandom but plan to upload the rest of my stories first. I have no plans to delete the work already uploaded. Thank you for your support over the years.
> 
> I do really appreciate all your comments btw, I'm just unsure how to respond to them at this time. Thank you again.


	14. The Inevitable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Inevitable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see end for notes

It had all been a risk. Everything they had done thus far had been estimations based on assumptions backed up with suppositions. Neither of them could really know what was going to happen, and with the cutting taking its toll on Stiles, pushing for the extra few days had seemed as reasonable as every other risk they took. It was like that, living in their own little world. Little to no contact from the outside. With even Chris now absent and thus not dragging Stiles off for extra showers, their only outside engagement was the daily drop off of food. Which Stiles mostly slept through thanks to his weakened state.

It was supposed to be their last day. The calm before the storm. Twenty-four hours of Stiles feeling his powers ripple under his skin so they could make a plan on what to do with them. So they could tease out his abilities in whatever way would be useful to them.

It didn’t go like that.

It didn’t go like that at all. 

What really happened was so catastrophic that Stiles swore he would never forget what went down.

It didn’t go like that.

It had all been a risk.

* * *

  
  


Stiles tenses through another cut. He isn’t wearing the gag, the need to scream quelled as he slowly became more used to the pain. It still hurt, horrifically so, but he found it easier to talk to Peter as it happened. To distract himself.

“I want to eat something other than bread. Something hot.  _ Fuck  _ what I’d do for hot food.”

“Mmhh, maybe a tart, with caramelized onions and butter pastry.” Peter sounded distracted as his claws did the delicate work, but he was engaged all the same with the conversation.

“Sure, or you know. A deep pan pizza. With a fuck load of onions, ham and mushroom.”

“Fine sliced pastrami and fresh spinach you mean.”

“Fuck, I want it so bad I’m not even going to complain about the idea of spinach on pizza.  _ Ouch _ —are you sure you didn’t do that on purpose?”

“This was always going to hurt.” Peter said wryly from behind him.

“I know, but funny how it hurts more when I disagree with you.” Stiles snipped back, tempted to turn round so he could see Peter's face.

“Coincidence.”

“Sure, just like—”

“—stop talking.” 

Stiles freezes, going completely quiet at Peter’s command. He doesn’t know why Peter had said it, but he yields to Peter’s direction. Peter isn’t moving, his hand just resting on Stiles’ back where he was working on the second to last tattoo. 

“Someone’s coming, put on the sweater.”

They were stupid in those last nights. Stiles’ sweater was half inside out on the bed, and he scrabbled to pick it up. He wasn’t going to put it on in time. 

“Okay, come here.” Peter snaps. He brings his claws up and drags a deep gash along the final tattoo, before throwing the blanket around Stiles’ shoulders.

It’s just in time, two guards walk in. Neither of them Chris.

“Hale, against the wall.” 

Neither of them move. Stiles is feeling weird. A bit sick from the blood loss from his most recent cut. He tries to hold the blanket tighter around himself to hide any signs of bleeding. He thinks he can feel it seeping down his back, it's distracting.

“Hale,  _ now.  _ Against the wall.”

Stiles looks over at Peter worried. “Are you taking him for training?”

The guard looks at him as if a piece of dirt had had the audacity to sprout lips and speak to him. “No, you’re being taken to shower.” Fear shoots up Stiles’ spine.

“I’m not due to go until tomorrow.” He feels desperate.

“Do I look like I give a shit Stilinksi? Now Hale,  _ against the wall. _ ”

Peter growls. But it doesn’t even sound right. He takes a step forward towards the bars, and Stiles realizes he’s going to get himself hurt to try and cover what they’re doing. Peter drops his fangs aggressively. “Get out.” He shouts at the guards, flashing his eyes red.

They don’t listen to him. One of them looks a bit scared.  _ Not new, just unused to dealing with an Alpha. Normally Chris is here. _ But they both grab their guns anyway. The one who had spoken has the bigger gun, the one that looks like a rifle. The one that shoots black stuff into Peter.  _ Wolfsbane. Poison that can kill a werewolf.  _

“Back off Hale. Get against the wall.”

“I said get out.” Peter growls at him aggressively.

“And I said—” the man shoots Peter in the arm, that horrific black tar already marring his perfect tan shoulders “—get against the wall.”

Peter staggers but glances at Stiles. It’s a sad look, but a resolute one all the same. And then he shifts fully. Dark brown hair sprouting from his skin, teeth that had already looked dangerous ripping through his mouth so the lips can’t close. His bones snapping as he appears to physically grow in size. And Stiles watches. Watches the shift. Watches the aggressive step forward. Watches as the guard clicks the safety back off and goes to squeeze the trigger again. This time pointed right at Peter’s chest...

And Stiles snaps.

“No!” 

_ It’s like sinking into a hot bath.  _

 

His back is bathed in heat. The smell of burnt cotton fills the air as what was once the blanket instantly disintegrates into ash. And then it’s his hand, pushed out in front of him, the heel level with the man’s face. Or what was once the man’s face. Before Stiles’ shot a spear of fucking fire at him. It’s hot. He’s so warm. The man’s face is in pieces. Smashed against the wall. Stiles thinks he can see brain matter.  _ Does he even know what brain matter looks like _ ? He’s distracted by the smell of burning flesh. Is it him? He’s so warm. The guy’s body looks burnt.

“What the fuck!” The younger man is shaking. Stiles can see he’s pissed himself. There’s something strange about that, ironic maybe. Stiles can’t tell, because  _ it’s so fucking hot.  _ He feels dizzy. 

The man grabs his weapon.

Stiles needs to stop him.  _ It’s so warm.  _

He’s going to shoot him. Make him vulnerable. He’s going to hurt Peter.

_ How am I supposed to know who I’m killing if I don’t have my eyes? _

Stiles burns up. 

 

* * *

  
  


 

Both the bodies are on fire. The wood in the walls is charred, steaming as the residual moisture evaporates. Stiles’ body aches, he feels like someone has dug in pickaxes, hot from a furnace, into his back. When he turns he can see wings.  _ I have wings.  _ The cage is just getting hotter. He thinks the smell of burning flesh is coming from the bodies, not him. But he’s so hot. 

He’s angry. They’re trying to make him vulnerable. They’re trying to hurt Peter.

“Peter!” 

Stiles finally turns around to look at him. The man is standing in the corner of the room. His hands out in front of him as if that could stop the flames. Stiles can hear voices from outside of the warehouse. Men shouting. The building is on fire. 

“Peter,  _ please. _ ” He’s scaring Peter. He’s scaring everyone. 

“It’s okay.” Peter says, he doesn’t move closer.

“I don’t want to hurt you.” Stiles’ wings shake, they’re not wings. They’re just fire. Pure heat sprouting from his body. He can smell burning flesh. He hopes it’s the bodies. He hopes it's not him,  _he hopes it's not Peter._

“It’s okay Stiles.” Peter’s voice is wrecked, probably from the ash falling from the burning ceiling. It makes Stiles think of the nights after sex. When Peter’s throat is bruised from groaning. When he can put his head on Peter’s chest. He’s going to kill Peter. It makes his heart ache. Like the flames have finally pierced it.

“Come here, I need to…” Peter flinches as he walks towards him. The floor is scorched with every step he takes. There’s something so funny about this. That he could scare anyone. That he could scare Peter. It makes him cry. 

When reaches out to touch Peter the skin blisters under him, cooked like meat. It smells disgusting. He’s hurting Peter. He digs his fingers around the collar. Peter whines as Stiles touch burns the sensitive throat. A moment later and the collar snaps, falling to the floor. Peter’s eyes flash red and he roars. Stiles wishes that everything wasn’t going to shit so he could watch. See what Peter really looks like when he isn’t held back by the collar.

_But it’s just so warm._ The men’s voices are louder, one of them gets in close enough to shoot a dart at Stiles. The thing burns up when it tries to pass through his wings. They’re trying to get closer, they’re trying to hurt him. 

Stiles is going to kill Peter. It’s so sad.

Peter whines, trying to step away from him. From the furnace that is his body.

Stiles can’t tell if things are happening quickly or slowly. 

 

_ He’s burning up. He still has his eyes. He’s going to watch Peter die. _

“Peter,” he pleads. 

“It’s okay. I-” Peter coughs, his throat is trying to heal the burns but they’re leaving a deep red scar all the same. 

_ I’d burn you to death, like you’re scared of.  _

“You were close to her.” 

“What?” Peter’s eyes are shut, Stiles has burned off all his eyelashes.

“You survived. You were close enough to see her eyes.”

“Stiles, it’s okay. You’re going to be okay. Make it hurt for them okay?” 

Peter is accepting his death, it’s horrible. It’s all so fucking hot, Stiles can barely breathe.

“No. You’re going to be okay. You’ve got to take me to the cabin, we’re going to lay in the grass, you’re going to kiss me under the stars.”

Peter cracks his eyes open, they’re red. There’s fire in Peter’s eyes. 

“You’ll look so beautiful in the moonlight.” The man scratches out. Peter kisses him.

Stiles burns up. 

  
  


_ Turn Left.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is technically the second to last chapter, although I have stuff for a sequel. I'll give more details in the final post next time. 
> 
> thank you as always for all your comments. As i said before, it's kinda hard to reply to them now that I've left fandom, but it means a lot to me that these stories still reach people, so thank you for taking the time to comment all the same. (I definitely read every one).


	15. Turn Left

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the final chapter of the saga

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a very long chapter, see end for extended notes.

Peter has been running for almost three hours straight, it means his legs ache as the buildup of lactic acid makes his muscles feel rigid and resists the constant movement. He is slowly regenerating his powers the longer he is without the collar, which allows him to break down the muscle fatigue faster than a mere mortal, that is until his powers are overwhelmed by the stress again of near constant movement. But he keeps running, every mile of dense forest thicket he puts between himself and _what was there_ is worth it for the illusion of safety.

The sky is turning crimson in the setting sun, it’s an unsettling image, it reminds him of the flames that licked over his body as the building blew out. The taste of charred flesh still licks over his tongue like bad medicine, he has to force himself not to think about it, not to worry that each deep breath in will be of ash, _and heat, and burning bodies...._

Peter keeps running. The slight body in his arms is lifeless, the faint heartbeat almost covered by the cacophony of insect calls around them the only assurance that his companion is alive. Stiles is alive, somehow. Somehow they are both alive. There isn’t a soul left from that godforsaken place but them. Even the trio of vampires that Peter knew were stored out on the limits of the facility were just piles of ash on the ground by the time he dragged himself out of there. Somehow Stiles had been right, the fire only got hotter the further away from him it got.

_He’d watched Stiles’ body catch on fire, the skin he was touching flaking away as curls of flame bled out of him. He’d listened to Stiles’ heart stop beating, saw when the ribs cracked open and instead a furnace bared itself. Somehow they were alive, but Stiles wasn’t. Not in that moment. He was nothing but flames._

Peter keeps running.

* * *

In the first town they get to he scavenges for clothes. Stiles is completely naked and Peter had only found a pair of gym shorts in a car parked a mile out from the facility to clothe himself thus far. He really doesn’t want to put Stiles down however, even though he knows he has to. Being seen half dressed will already attract attention, carrying a naked teenager will look downright suspicious. _Is Stiles even a teenager? Peter never asked, he knows he’s ‘legal’ - a promise Stiles made him one night, between kisses and Stiles.. Maybe manipulating him, maybe in love with him, trying to ring out a promise to keep him. As if Peter didn’t have the slighter man’s very soul etched in under his skin. As if he hadn’t fucked up somewhere and turned_ me _into_ us, I _into_ we, _as if he hadn’t dressed Stiles in sleepy mornings, green glow of grass on his milky skin, twilight stars in his eyes. As if, as if…_ Peter needs to keep going.

He finds a blanket outside a thrift shop, left by someone alongside some second-hand junk for whomever opens the shop in the morning. It’s worn, dusty, an unhealthy amount of cat hair stuck to its fuzzy fleece, but it’s an asset all the same. Carefully he wraps his cargo, letting the fabric flop over Stiles' face in an attempt to conceal him. Peter can hear people nearby but forces himself to deposit Stiles behind some crates in an alleyway. It’s so unnerving to be out in the open like this. Peter has the uncontrollable feeling that leaving him there will lead to something horrible, like Stiles might burst into flames -- _more likely than you’d think--_ or that someone will take him. Peter’s whole world was once so large, but over the past two years it had been reduced down to the Argent compound. In the last months his life has meant he’s known at all times where Stiles is, even before he met the phoenix. _The boy who screamed in pain every night. The boy who sighed in pleasure under him_. Stepping away is terrifying. He’s horrified to admit this even to himself, the idea he could be so compromised, but every inch of him is saying it’s _wrong_ to leave his pack so vulnerable.

Peter makes himself leave the alley.

Homes and shops are too dangerous. Peter could easily trip an alarm that has the police coming down on them --  _a town this close to a facility, it’d be ridiculous to think that the law enforcement aren’t inside the hunters’ pockets_ \-- so he is forced to try cars. Enough of his teenage years were spent with cousins, breaking into cars and joyriding them around town, that this isn’t new to him even though he’s clearly rusty.

Peter keeps to old cars, less dangerous, first looking for signs of clothes, money or food. He’s lucky that he picks up a man’s jacket almost as soon as he starts, and he pulls it on. Shoes would have been nice, but people are less likely to notice a barefoot man than a shirtless one. He picks up a rucksack with a crushed packet of fig newtons and a half full bottle of water in the bottom in the second car. It’s useful, and he tries poking at the wiring to see if he’d be able to tamper with it. No such luck. The third car gives him some coins, a lighter and a penknife - from the outside he’d been pretty certain he could get it going, but there had obviously been some work done on the electrics as they were tucked up high in the body of the car. How long Peter had spent away from Stiles was already weighing heavily on him however, his ears straining just to pick up the light heartbeat.

Peter glances at the blue audi sitting in the corner of the lot. It’s newer than anything else here, he only knows he can break into it because Talia had had one. Peter had spent countless hours stripping down the engine with her husband, bonding over a love of taking apart complicated things. He’d taught Laura how to hotwire a car with that audi, and could do it with his eyes closed. It’d be a safe bet if it wasn’t for the fact that it was overlooked by a store with a security guard. Not police, just someone working security, but it feels like a risk. Everything he’s doing is a risk, and every minute he waits just escalates the chance for being caught.

He walks over to it, trying not to look like he’s scoping out a hit. It looks the same, perhaps less looked after than Talia’s car, and the model is finally starting to date. Peter’s adept eyes scan over the security guard, he's playing on his phone and not even paying attention to the store let alone the car lot outside. But it's a risk. He should leave it, find something safer out of sight. Peter spots a bag in the back, a bottle of powerade visible and what could be a sealed sandwich carton. It'll make their next steps easier, more supplies readily at hand. It means that Peter will be able to drive for longer without stopping.

The guard gets a phone call, and walks to the back of the shop to answer it. Peter takes the chance, using the penknife this time to get the car open, to circumnavigate the alarm. It works, the door opens.

The best thing to do is get Stiles, gently he leaves the door open on the car and gets back to his companion. Stiles is exactly where he left him. His body is cold to the touch, such a contrast to the pure flames that Peter can’t get out of his head. It worries him. _It’ll be okay_. There will be heating in the car. They’ll get out of this town. Out of this state. They’ll switch cars when they can. They’ll find a phone and Peter will get in contact with one of the offshore bank accounts he has for a wire transfer. He has assets. He has a plan. This is what he did every day when meditating. So that the day he killed all the Argent scum that infested that place, and left their bodies to rot in the dirt, he’d get out of there. A perfect exit strategy… He just didn’t count on having someone with him.

He holds Stiles' body close to his chest as he returns to the car lot. He considers strapping him in but the body is completely lax, crumpled. He looks dead. It’s horrible, Peter spends his time listening to the slow heart rate and minuscule breaths just to remind himself he isn’t carting around the dead body of his lover. _He needs to keep going._

Peter gets into the front seat and is just about to start hotwiring the car as he sees someone walking over to the car. His claws prickle in his hands. _Would it be easier just to kill them? Is this a hunter?_ The idea that anyone other than himself (and Stiles) isn’t in league with the hunters is nigh on unfathomable. Even the other wolves at the compound would have sold him out for a rest from the torture. He didn’t begrudge them, survival is a cruel mistress.

It would make getting out of there harder if he kills the man, he sits and waits. Becoming more and more on edge as the figure gets closer and is clearly heading straight towards them.

“Alright there?” Says the man, late thirties, possibly older than Peter. He doesn’t smell of wolfsbane, but he’s armed. A gun on his right hand side holstered and hidden under his jacket. It’s an open carry state, there’s no reason for the guy not to have a gun in a place like this. But it puts Peter on edge. Talking to anyone right now puts him on edge. It’s been so long since he’s been out in the open like this, once upon a time he could work people like a fiddle. Talking himself out of a corner was easy. Hell, this whole thing would be simple if he didn’t have Stiles with him. If the only body he had to worry about protecting was his own.

Peter has the horrible feeling if they took Stiles from him now, he’d go back to get him. It’s not a welcome thought.

“Hey, yeah, everything’s good now.” Peter says with a smile. Eyes flicking to where Stiles is crashed out on the back seat. At least the blanket isn’t over his face, so it just looks like he’s sleeping instead of a dead body. Peter can hear that the security guard from across the road has finished his phone call and that the car is now back in his line of sight.

“Oh yeah? Anything I can help with?” The man doesn’t look too friendly, a face with set frown lines and a voice broken with years of tobacco. But his heart rate is even and isn’t giving off any chemical smells of anger or hatred.

“Like I said, all good now. My nephew got drunk and streaked at a party with some friends,” It’s like riding a bike. Lying to people, twisting a story to what they want to hear, to solve the inconsistencies. The Argent's took a lot from him, but they couldn’t take his ability to work people. That much is proved just by the fact that he’s out here now, away from that place. His darling little time bomb half dead in the back seat. “His dad called me up and I jumped in the car straight away to get him. Didn’t even bring my wallet.” Peter finishes with a laugh.

The man let’s out a hawk of a laugh, “Aint it always the way with kids. He need a hospital?”

“Nah, he was up and talking earlier. I think he learnt his lesson about underage drinking the hard way.” The man’s posture has relaxed, Peter tries to let his as well. Confirm the idea that they’re just two men bemoaning the hi-jinks of children.

_This child has caused more pain than you could ever imagine, and he did it for me. You should probably back away now._

“You got long to drive?”

“Maybe an hour or so, I got here quicker.” Slow savvy grin, playful shrug of the shoulders.

“I’ll bet. If it were my brother’s kid I’d have broken every damn law gettin’ there.” Answering nod, flash of teeth at the idea of mischief. 

“Well, don’t tell the local sheriff, but I wasn’t exactly checking the speed gauge.” Peter has to stop himself from winking, too much.

“Makes you a better man for it. No wallet eh, you need some cash?”

Peter’s heart lurches, every inch of his being wants to say _yes, desperately,_ but he wouldn’t be where he is today if he let that show on his face.

“Probably not.” He says with a shrug, but then looks over to Stiles like he’s considering something. “Although if he wakes up on the way home it might be useful to buy some liquids. But it’s not vital.”

“Well why not take some anyway.” The man gets out his wallet and pulls out a slightly crumple hundred dollar bill, offering it to Peter through the window. “Just give whatever you end up leftover in some charity pot.”

It’s a lot of money. In the long run it’s nothing, Peter has more money than that locked up in in his childhood money box, but for his situation right now, it’s a lot of money. He feels like this must be some kind of test. That it's physically impossible that he’s just been handed something so useful for nothing. All his hard edges and suspicion doesn’t know how to react to the kindness.

The man laughs, “You aint from around here then.”

Peter’s eyes snap back to the man’s face. “What makes you think that?”

“Well first up that accent. But secondly, you don’t know small town hospitality. You some city boy?”

Peter nods, slowly, hopefully not showing the lost little boy feeling on his face that is racing so hard in his chest, “Yeah, although I used to live in a small town... My mother would slap me silly for forgetting my manners.”

The man laughs again, “Now that sounds familiar.”

“Thanks, look let me take down your number.” It’s like getting out a skeleton from his closet, this push and pull of social niceties. He opens up the glove box desperately hoping that whoever really owns this car doesn’t have something provocative in there. All safe: some gum, sunglasses and spare receipts. There’s a blunt pencil at the back. “So I can pay you back some time.”

“I aint need no paying back, but you let me know you and that boy are alright, yeah?”

Peter nods, taking down the number and waving the guy off.

He makes a fuss of checking Stiles even though he knows there’s been no change in his status, to give enough distance between him and the stranger so that the man won’t see him hot wire the car instead of getting out some keys.

The whole thing has him shaken. His first brush with humanity and it looked nothing like he remembered it being. The man could have been a hunter, or best friends with hunters. Could be a racist that took a liking to Peter because he was white and big looking. The world was a disgusting place and there was no point trusting anyone you come into contact with because lying was the easiest thing in the world. He was still shaken though. Kindness seemed to be the greatest weapon of the outside world. 

Peter snapped himself out of the train of thought, they need to keep going. They’re still in Argent’s backyard. He has a plan. He’s got to keep following the plan. Peter pulls the car onto the nearest highway out of there, mentally constructing all the things he’ll need next and the order of importance of getting them.

He keeps going.

* * *

 

If they took Stiles from him now, he'd go back and get him.

 

* * *

 

 

It happens four car changes, two states crossed, and thirteen sleeps, later. Peter had picked up a burner phone in the first proper town they came across, spent his charity money on some basic clothes for the two of them from a thrift store, and stolen a new car. (He'd picked up a couple of extra plates as well, there was no such thing as being too careful). The burner phone had him make arrangements to pick up a cash deposit in a Montana bank. A long trek, even if they didn't have to keep swapping cars, but they'd have further to go after that to get to his final destination anyway. At least once he had some liquid cash he could start buying cars instead of stealing them. Safer all round. 

Peter was not stupid enough to relax. He wasn't even careless enough to be hopeful that they'd make it. What kept him going, what had always kept him going, was sheer fanatical determination. To thrive in spite of his conditions. _Through_ spite if needed. Peter had always been the one willing to do what was necessary. It had made people fear him, as much as they respected him. A useful asset, but not a friend. Not a companion. Not an ally. He'd been alone all his life, even when he was surrounded by family.  _It was disgusting really, that he was the only one left breathing._ Every day was like checking off a box. Every mile was another step. There was no end, there wasn't even a future, there was just  _what had to be done next._ He did what he was brilliant at: he survived, he endured, he went on.

...He wasn't sure when he ad started talking to Stiles' silent body. But he would at least admit to himself he was doing it by now. He didn't like having the radio on, as it blocked out the natural sounds around him.  _Blocked out the faint sounds of Stiles' heart._ It had been five days now. Five days of silence. Five days of Stiles' body resisting any signs of healing. The talking helped.

"We'll spend the last of the cash at the next gas stop. Get some supplies, there's no point keeping now we're so close to Montana. And we're low on water. I've only got one bottle left for me, and yours from for when you wake up." He was good at it, driving. He had always been good at talking too, but not like this. Not this constant stream of consciousness. This was something he had had to learn.

"I still cannot believe they had a sale on protein bars of all things. I felt sickened just looking at them, but you know why I bought them. There's no point jeopardising things just because of bad associations. Sentimentality is for the weak. But when we get to the cabin, I fucking swear to you-" Stiles' swearing had rubbed off on him at some point apparently, "-we'll never eat a fucking protein bar again. That's a promise. Bread we can do, but it'll be fresh. I'll bake it myself if I have to, fill the cabin with the smell of freshly made bread. You'll see, it'll be nothing like what we were eating. I'll have to get some conserve, potted cherry or something. I'm sure we can pick you up some sugary shit. What do they call it? Nutella? Disgusting really- Stiles? _Stiles?_ "

He pulls over. 

He didn't even mean to, it was just Peter's first instinct. Pull over, stop the car. Focus all his attention on the dishevelled body in the back seat. Peter is two seconds away from climbing back there, but he can't stop watching the subtle ways Stiles' limbs are moving. His heart rate increasing. The scents, and tastes, of a  _live body,_ filling the car in a way Peter didn't even realise he missed so much. It was like watching someone being resurected. He daren't move lest he scare it off. Lest he breaks the spell. But at the same time he  _needs_ to know. He  _needs_ to check. Simple, Peter just  _needs._ Needs so much, to fill that awful Stiles shaped hole that is burning away in his side like a fucking stab wound. 

"Stiles?" His voice is wrecked.

The boy opens his eyes. His pupils darting around the car before resting on Peter. Aware, cautious, bright. Just like Peter remembers.

"Stiles?" It's all he's got.

Stiles just keeps looking at him for a moment, before finally opening his mouth - voice dry and scratched, sore from lack of use - but emitting sound all the same. "Who are you?"

 

 

 

_They keep going._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Urghed I can't really believe it's over.
> 
> Ok, lots of notes needed.
> 
> 1\. This chapter was really hard to write, I rarely write in Peter's POV, and I wanted a stark contrast to Stiles' POV. So there was lots of very long sentences. Unlike Stiles' constant broken/jumpy thought processes. So yeah, I hope it was as readable as the rest of the fic. If you didn't like the style shift, my apologises. At least you know it was intentional.
> 
> 2\. This is really where this fic ends. There was a time when I actually ended this fic at the last chapter (where Stiles' burns up) but I changed my mind. This fic had to end here. They got out. Alive. Kinda. I always had a sequel planned (I am unsure whether I'll ever write it, if I don't, I'll upload all my notes for it), but THIS story ends here. 
> 
> 3\. If for whatever reason this ending doesn't make sense to you, I recommend you re-read the fic (lol) - particularly chapter 6 (playing with fire). Everything will be explained here, and I'm sure there's actually lots of you who saw this coming. 
> 
> 4\. I actually wrote this whole thing in 3 weeks at a truly awful time of my life. Where writing fic was one of the few things I kinda' had to grip onto. Healing from that also meant leaving behind one of my coping mechanisms. Fandom. There were definitely bad things in fandom, but really what happened was that I needed to start the next bit of my life. I'll always be grateful for the time I spent here. For those who are interested: I've managed to put my life together. Things are good, great even. For that reason, I know I made the right decision. But it doesn't mean that I left this space without regrets, nor does it mean that I didn't leave behind friends that I treasured. I wish you all (new readers & old friends alike) the best. 
> 
> \- alt. 
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> _p.s. if you have any burning questions, I'll try and answer a few of the comments on this final chapter. Especially if I decide against posting a sequel._


End file.
